


The Loose Ends Will Make Knots

by starvinbohemian



Series: The Loose Ends Will Make Knots [1]
Category: Days of Our Lives
Genre: Depression, M/M, POV Second Person, expansion of character backstory, not-a-fix-it-fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-29 23:28:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 46,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starvinbohemian/pseuds/starvinbohemian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“You look into his blue eyes, still hazy with want for you, and you realize you have your answer. Not all escapes are destinations.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Angsty, emotional smut for the battling OTPs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dani_blondy](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=dani_blondy).



> What’s the opposite of a fix-it fic?

 

 

_“A heart suspends, then bends it into three_

_A broken piece of what we used to be.”_

 

— “The Loose Ends Will Make Knots” by Stars.

 

 

        You remember thinking that a winter wedding could be beautiful.

        Much as you might dislike the bride, you could easily imagine how lovely Gabi, dressed in white, could look while standing in snow with a red bouquet in hand. You imagined a church with untouched snowfall gathered on the lattices, the wealthy people of Salem dressed in furs and jewels, and you…

        In your mind, you saw yourself dancing with Will at the reception, huddled together in the winter air, your hot breaths visibly mingling between you as you held him close.

        It was a nice idea.

        But, of course, it doesn’t snow the day of Gabi and Nick’s wedding. Everyone is there, but they’re there to witness your public humiliation as your boyfriend stands up before the good people of Salem and admits to having knocked up the bride.

        Your pretty picture starts to crack down the middle.

 

**________________________**

 

        One of the most painful experiences of your life, and everywhere you go, people seem to know about it.

        You strongly suspect some local tabloid of alerting the public to the whole thing. You don’t read that kind of stuff and refuse to start now, but the evidence is all around. People you’ve never even made eye-contact with before turn around to stare at you in class. You can’t help but feel that certain patrons come into Common Grounds specifically to gawk at you.

        You have to smile and be professional, and you do. It just gets harder each time.

        You never wanted to be high-profile, but both you and Will come from prominent families and most of Salem’s prominent families were present at the wedding. People slurp up melodrama like it’s going out of style, always. When something big happens, they are going to pay attention. And Will offered them up a feast by coming clean in the most dramatic, public way possible.

        Why? Why would he do this to you? It didn’t have to go down like it did. Sure, Chad had blown the paternity scandal sky high by announcing that the baby couldn’t be Nick’s, but Will could have… Really, he could have done _anything_ other than what he did and it would have been better. He didn’t have to humiliate you.

        He just chose to. Your best friend, your lover.

        “Did you know about this?” Lucas asked you. When your chest felt tight enough to snap, and you could do nothing but stand there, paralyzed, as you watched Will knock down with hilarious ease all the dreams you’d built.

        You remember that Will’s grandmother Kate already looked sorry for you. “Look at him. Of course he didn’t.”

        Of course you didn’t.

        It’s more likely that Will didn’t even consider your feelings at all in the moment. Contrary to what Lucas believes about his son, Will is more than capable of leaping without looking first. He has the reactionary gene. You probably weren’t even a factor in his decision to blurt out the truth at the most inconvenient time.

        That doesn’t exactly make you feel better.

        So, now people stare at you.

        You really wish they wouldn’t. They make you feel cheap and violated, as if people are enjoying your pain (they are).

        The stares make you want to disappear. Each time, you can feel yourself shrinking back a little more behind a protective mental wall, your own private Jericho. You know better than to let yourself do that, but it’s your favorite defense mechanism.

        You remember telling Will to ignore the stares when he was suspected of murder (and when he was outed in a tabloid, and when…). _Who cares,_ you said, _as long as you know who you are?_ As usual, your advice is easier said than done.

        It’s not all strangers either. Your friends and family just want to make sure you’re okay. They mean well. You get that. But when they force you to talk about it, you have to actually face what’s happened to you, and you have to acknowledge that Will…

        … that Will is gone. Gone to have a baby with someone who is not you. He’s going to be a _father_ , and this baby is going to be the most important thing in his world.

        And you? You’re going to be alone. Again.

        This is not your happy ending.

 

**________________________**

 

        Your parents are big believers in therapy.

        Once upon a time, you gave them good reason to be.

        Maybe people wouldn’t guess it by looking at you, but there was a time when you struggled, and it got bad for a while. Your parents credit your therapist with helping you come to terms with yourself, and then with helping them come to terms with _you_.

        A lot of work by a lot of people went into creating the person you are today.

        You tried to explain the process to Will once, but it was hard when you didn’t want him to know the true extent of your past self-loathing. You tried to give him just enough for him to benefit from your experiences, but there were pieces of you that you weren’t ready to share yet, and your friendship at the time was still so new.

        You don’t know why you didn’t tell him later.

        Of course, there was always the worry that you might push him right over the cliff he seemed to be perpetually hanging over during those early days of knowing him. Back then, it could hurt to look at him, to see him in so much pain, and not just because it was like looking into a mirror and seeing yourself seven years prior.

        You’ve only ever wanted to see Will happy.

        You thought you were doing him a favor by presenting yourself as a positive example, as someone who had gone through the fire and come out unbreakable.

        Except you misrepresented how bad the fire burned you, probably because you wanted him to see the bright side at the other end of the tunnel instead of the dark parts of your soul that so many people have helped you to bury.

        Maybe that’s why Will didn’t believe you when you tried to tell him it would be okay. He’s always been able to read you like an open book.

        You thought that went both ways.

        Now, with the benefit of hindsight, you wonder if portraying yourself as so unflappable has finally come around to bite you. Will’s grandmother Kate once asked you to be careful with him, and you did your absolute best for whatever good it was worth.

        But, all too frequently, people seem to forget to be careful with _you_.

        Maybe it’s because you put up such a good front. If anyone were to ask, then you could tell them that it’s easy enough to _seem_ okay. All you have to do is shut down and move forward…

        … and leave everything blowing in the wind behind you.

 

**________________________**

 

        Of course, there is at least one person who knows what fragility looks like on you.

        Sunlight glints off of her diamond earrings and into your eyes, and your mother looks at you with concern when she asks, “Honey, how are you doing?”

        “I’m… doing,” you say.

        Henderson has laid out a beautiful brunch for you in the gardens this morning, and you wish you were in a place to appreciate it. He even had heat lamps set up to protect you from the winter morning chill. Your favorite muffins are on the table, your favorite juice in the pitcher. Uncle Victor's poor, long-suffering butler sees all but says little.

        Bundled up in your favorite blanket, you push the eggs across your plate, separating the food into separate camps so none of it is touching.

        Mom watches you do this, probably remembering years spent raising a neurotic eater. Your brothers eat as if the plate could be taken away at any moment, shoveling food into their mouths with impressive speed. Just one more way you’re different.

        “Sonny…”

        You do your best to smile, even though it’s hard. “I’m okay, Mom.”

        You know it’s a struggle for her, but she’s been so good about avoiding Will’s name lately. She keeps all her _I-told-you-so’s_ to herself, and you’re grateful. She never wanted you with Will in the first place. And now you’re not. So, what else is there to say about it?

        She pats your hand, looking no less worried. She’s been here before after all. “You know, I still have Doctor Leonard’s number…”

        “I’m okay, Mom. It’s just the weather." _This time_ , you don't say. "You know how it puts me in a mood.”

        There’s a reason you always ran for hot destinations. Years spent living in Texas, in Dubai, in Africa have left you dependent on the sun’s Vitamin D as a vital source of endorphins. Not everyone has to think about specific sources of endorphins, but you do. Salem’s New England weather has been an adjustment.

        Mom clearly doesn’t believe you, and not just because you’re having brunch outside on a perfectly blue sky morning, but she wants you to be okay almost as much as you do.

        It’s been years since you had a really bad episode.

        You really, really want to be okay.

 

**________________________**

 

        “Have you talked to Brian lately?”

        Speak of the devil, and he will appear.

 

**________________________**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. In the July 7, 2011 episode, Justin and Adrienne mentioned having participated in support groups to help them understand and deal with Sonny's sexual orientation.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every minute, every day.

        The morning of the wedding, everything was perfect.

        You were fixing Will’s tie for him. His hair was still mussed from making love with you. He had the key, and you were already secretly planning all sorts of cheesy, romantic places where you could hide your next gifts for him to find.

        You thought everything was perfect. Will knew better.

        It's kind of devastating how easily it all slipped out of your hands.

        You laugh when Brian makes a joke about Will’s baggage coming complete with a diaper bag, because if you don’t smile through it, you don’t know what you’ll do.

        It’s another coping mechanism of yours.

 

**________________________**

 

        When you returned to Salem, you told yourself that it was going to be different this time. You were going to do it right, be the person you wanted to be instead of the person you used to be. You could be New Sonny.

        You _liked_ being New Sonny. Friendly, trusting, _open_ , New Sonny was hard-earned for you. Old Sonny was never really gone, but you could push all the old hangups back into the dark where they belonged. For the most part.

        Old insecurities reared their heads when Will tried to pressure you into sex before either of you were ready, tried to use you just to reassure himself that he could. It was a reflex that had you breaking up with him right there on the spot. If it isn’t fun to be used by someone you don’t even care about, then it’s miserable to be used by someone you love.

        Will learned then that you can be reactionary, too.

        And if he didn’t, then at least he knows now.

        When you walked out of that church, you were done. You’ve made a lot of allowances for Will over the past two years. You’ve waded through a whole lot of crazy. You stood by him when he was being terrible to everyone, when he was offending your friends because he could barely stand to be around anyone gay that wasn’t you. Safe, nonjudgmental, nonthreatening you. You stood by him when he was working for a mobster and sabotaging honest elections so E.J. could become the mayor. You stood by him when he was accused of _murder_.

        Is it so much to ask that he be honest with you? That he not impregnate psychopaths and then string you along for months and months? After everything, don’t you deserve better than that?

        You ignored the little voice at the back of your mind that warned you something was coming, that Will wasn’t being completely honest with you, because you dismissed it as being Old Sonny with his bleak pessimism trying to ruin your happiness.

        You didn’t listen. But you should have.

        The bricks were already there, lodged into tidily ordered corners of your brain, but Will is the reason you have to build the wall back up after thinking yourself done with it forever.

        And now New Sonny feels very far away, as if it would require another trek through fire to reach him.

        You just don’t have the energy at the moment.

**________________________**

 

        It confounds you how you can be so mad at Will, feel so betrayed, yet he can still take your breath away just by walking into a room.

        He comes into the cafe, sets himself there in your doorway with a resolute tilt of his chin, his delicate bravery on display. Looking at him scatters your feelings into kaleidoscope fragments. You want to cry, you want to kiss him, you want him to go away and never come back, you want him to stay, you want…

        No matter what you’re feeling, there’s always been a pull between you. It can override your common sense if you let it.

        Will tells you, “Sonny, I can’t tell you how much I wish every day that I never lied to you. I _love_ you, and it’s not like I’m gonna stop. I want to be with you.” He’s saying all the right things, the things you need to hear.

        In a weird way, you can’t help but feel proud of him. You once assured him that he would get to this place where he would know and be able to articulate what he wants. In some ways, he’s come so far. He’s advanced where you’ve regressed.

        Will inches closer with clear intent, and you see it, you do, but you can’t bring yourself to move away. He’s so earnest, and seeing it eats away at your resolve.

        “Sonny, God, I swear that if… I mean, if you could just give me one more chance, then I will never lie to you again. I miss you every minute. I miss you every day.”

        You see what’s going to happen before it does. Will lunges for you, and you let him. He kisses you with so much desperate longing that it shoots straight to your heart like an adrenaline shot.

        Just like that, the wall comes down.

        The pull between you snapped tight, you forget yourself and kiss him back. The undertow drags you down, and you follow him to the center of the room, momentarily struck blind with desire. God, you’ve missed him. You’ve never wanted anything like you’ve wanted him. And you’re so close to throwing your pride and your reason away just so you can hold him again.

        But then he says, “Can we got back to your place? Please?”

        And you realize he’s doing it again, trying to distract you with sex. For all the ways he has progressed, some things are still very much the same.

        Your body and your heart have already betrayed you, so you’re honest: “I want to be alone with you so bad right now. More than anything…” It would be so, so easy to take Will back to your place, to lose yourself in his body, to use him to numb yourself _against_ him.

        “Okay,” Will says. He eagerly reaches for you. “Okay.”

        You push him back. “Will, it’s not gonna fix our problems. It’s not gonna make anything better. It’s gonna be just sex. And it’s never been just sex with us.”

        Everything else has been tarnished by lies and disappointments. You’re not going to let him take this last thing away from you, too.

        Will cups your face. His expression is loving and maybe even kind of grateful. “You are so incredible. You are the best thing that could have ever happened to me. And I’m sorry I’m such an idiot.”

        You want to believe him, but if you’re so incredible and the best thing that’s ever happened to him, then why are you both in this situation?

        As you watch him leave, you’ve never felt more in (and out) of love before in your life.

**________________________**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Selections of dialogue were adapted from the January 24, 2013 episode (the "I miss you every minute, I miss you every day" and the "It's never been just sex between us" scenes).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian.

        When Brian re-enters your life, he comes ready for battle.

        Before, it was mostly innocent banter and date invitations to comedy shows and concerts. He was patient if forward with his intentions, and you were flattered if uninterested. When you and Will became official, Brian bowed out gracefully, letting you know he would "be around" should that ever change.

        It turns out that was Round #1.

        Round #2 already feels different. Brian is different. He doesn't come around with invitations or a sympathetic ear. He’s rested, regrouped, polished, and he has the high ground this time because you’ve already been worn down by Will. He’s not going to let you friend-zone him this time.

        He’s ready for you, and you have absolutely no defenses left.

**________________________**

        In the aftermath, he walks through the door, probably expecting to find you an emotional mess.

        Five, four, _three_ years ago? He might have.

        Today, you smile. “Hey, Brian.”

**________________________**

        “It’s been a while. Haven’t seen you around.”

        “I lead a quiet, monastic life,” he says.

        Uh-huh. “That’s so you.”

        "Seriously. You turned me down. My world was shattered, and I started contemplating the emptiness of existence.”

        Even though he’s obviously playing with you, you did wonder once if losing out to Will didn’t at least hurt his ego, if not his heart. He seemed sincere at the time, but Brian is the kind of guy you assume is used to getting what he wants.

        Once upon a time, you would have been one of the eager souls lining up to give him everything (anything). Your least favorite ex once called you “needy,” but it always felt like the opposite, as if you were giving away parts of yourself faster than you could fill them back up.

        Before Will, beautiful, arrogant, entitled boys were kind of your forte. You like to think you’ve evolved a little since then.

        You can only imagine what kind of hot mess you and Brian would have made if you had met earlier and if he had still wanted you half as much as he seems to now.

        “Yeah, I have that effect on people. So, what’d you come up with?”

        He hesitates, and you roll your eyes. “Right. You _contemplated_.”

        “I _did_. And I realized that if existence is empty, the least we should get is a cup of good Italian espresso along the way.”

        The line is so cheesy, but you’re smiling because it’s so nice to be having a conversation that isn’t about Will, and you don’t think he’s really expecting you to take him seriously anyway. For some reason, you find Brian's lack of subtlety endearing instead of annoying. The way he’s looking at you… it’s making your head swim pleasantly.

        Brian hangs around Common Grounds through the last hour of your shift. You know he’s waiting for closing. Your heart pounds and your palms start to sweat. You can feel an invisible cord between you start to tighten and pull. You’re being drawn in.

        After the last customer is out the door and you’ve flipped the lock, Brian says, “You want something? Just do it. Go big or go home, right?”

        He’s talking about the caffeine-high of espresso. He’s not talking about espresso at all. And you think, _Ah, there it is_. Go big or go home (alone). Brian has thrown down the gauntlet, and it’s your turn to pick it up. Do you want to?

        The reality of this suddenly hits you. You realize you’re not dealing with hypotheticals anymore, and that you’ve been subconsciously leaning toward him. He’s leaning towards you… You’re closer than you’re ready to be. And all of a sudden you feel too warm in your own skin.

        Panic puts you back into your designated pattern of pulling away at his push. Having gotten a little too close to the fire, you try taking a step back into safer territory. You avert your gaze from his hungry one and you pretend to focus on putting your apron away. “Right.”

        Brian follows you around the counter. He’s not going to make this easy on you, not this time. “It’s really good to hear you laugh,” he says.

        “It feels like forever since I have,” you admit. You thought it would be forever until you _would_.

        “It shouldn’t be like that. Not for you.”

        And he’s in your personal space (or maybe you moved into his) but you’re standing closer than casual friends should. He touches your hand. You feel the playful smile slip off your face. You know what Brian wants, what he’s always wanted. This is your last chance to put on the breaks. You don’t know what’s going to happen if you give in.

        That’s a lie. You know exactly what’s going to happen. And that’s why when Brian leans halfway toward you, hesitating long enough to let you choose, you meet him in the middle.

**________________________**

        When Will desperately clutched your face and kissed you, it reminded you of the sensation of drowning, of being pulled down against your will by an unshakable force. The force was love, but it still left you vulnerable all over again when all you wanted was some control back.

        When Brian kisses you, just hours later, it feels as if you’ve been thrown a life-preserver.

        Just as you’re losing yourself in his mouth, he asks if you want to stop. Do you? 

         _No_ , you realize. You don’t. You want to kiss him until the lust fries your brain and you can’t remember why he’s there in the first place.

        And so you do.

        This time, you’re going to borrow one of Will’s coping mechanisms.

        This time, Brian gets to win. And everyone else gets to lose.

**________________________**

        You tried to be friends with Brian before. It didn’t work.

        Much as you tried to ignore it in the past, there’s an undeniable spark between you that can flare to life at any given moment. It’s banked passion and thwarted lust. Brian looks at you as if he wants to eat you alive. You can’t be “just friends” with someone who looks at you like that.

        Still, when the spark is dormant, when he stops with the cheesy lines and barely tempered sexual aggression, you find that you can really enjoy his company. It just wasn’t worth the risk or the strain on Will’s insecurity while you were together. Some part of you may have wanted Brian, but all of you wanted Will. The choice the first time was easy.

        Yet, here you are again.

        You said you wanted to take it slow. You said, “Oh, this is my favorite movie,” and Brian said, “I know.”

        You don’t make it twenty minutes in before you’re in Brian’s lap. His hands are in your hair, down your back, gripping your ass and pulling you in as you grind against him. You’re kissing him with tongue and teeth, and there’s popcorn on the floor where Brian hilariously chucked it the second he anticipated your move (yeah, you’re the one who snapped first).

        Your cock is straining against your jeans, and you wonder how long before Brian bulldozes through that last barrier. He doesn’t actually say it aloud, but everything about the desperate way he clutches you, the way he moans and moves says, _Finally_.

        You two could never be just friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Selections of dialogue were adapted from the January 31, 2013 episode (the "Brian returns" scene).
> 
> 2\. I've seen so many people describe Brian's actions on the show as "throwing down the gauntlet" that I feel I have to credit the entire Wilson/Brison community for the imagery.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stay.

        Just when you think that you’re starting to understand the big picture, Will tells you that he gave up his own kid for you.

        He was going to _give his kid away._ So he could keep _you_. What was he thinking? Salem isn’t that big of a town. You would have seen that child on any given day, would have walked right by her — a _daughter_ , Will is having a _daughter_ — and never known. Maybe his plan was to distract you whenever it happened so you wouldn’t look too close and see that she had Will’s eyes or his smile.

        He must think you’re really stupid.

        You’ve been really stupid.

        If that weren’t bad enough, then Will wants you to think that she wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for you, as if you were right there in bed with them.

        It’s so unfair of him to put that on you.

        Will rejected _you_ that day. You had finally put yourself out there, laid your heart on your sleeve, and kissed him because you were so, so grateful he was safe and _alive_ after the gas explosion that took out a good chunk of Salem in one blast.

        He pushed you away, accused you of taking advantage, and essentially told you that it was all in your head, that he never wanted you at all.

        You don’t think there will ever be a time in your life when that memory doesn’t sting.

        Brian was there for you that day, his attention a ready balm for your bruised ego.

        Apparently, you were silly to think that it was ever truly about _your_ pain, because it was always going to be about Will.

        Will, who was so messed up by the prospect of you-and-him that he went off the rails and nearly gave you whiplash with his quick turn-around from _no_ to _absolutely yes_.

        But not before he jumped into Gabi’s bed to… what? Cure himself? Of you? After he saw you with Brian…

        Maybe he doesn’t mean it to sound like blame, but that’s what you hear. That if you had never kissed him, had never _confused_ him, had never let Brian into your coffee shop that day, then this child, this new _life_ , wouldn’t exist.

        If he’s right, and your involvement really was so integral to her coming into existence, then that kind of makes you responsible for her, and for what Will almost did for you. That’s just…

        And now Will wants to make you a father.

        A father to his and Gabi’s child. The one that was conceived because Will saw you with Brian and jumped to the wrong conclusion. In a strange way, this makes Brian responsible for her, too.

        Will, Brian, Gabi, Nick, you— you’re all twisted up together in knots and the end result is this baby.

        “I want you to be in her life,” he tells you. What else could he mean?

        Abigail asked if you could live with what Will did. She meant the lies. You wonder if you could live with the responsibility.

        “Sonny, _please_.”

        Right now… no.

        You can’t. 

**________________________**

        Contrary to popular belief, you don’t always handle it well when things get hard.

        When things got bad for you in Dubai, you ran off to “find yourself” in Europe and ended up trekking down into Africa to climb mountains (turns out there are no mountains high enough to escape from yourself). When things went south with your ex in Africa, you ran back to Salem with some lofty goal of finally introducing people to the real you.

        You wonder where you’ll run this time and how you’ll excuse it.

        When you voice these thoughts to Brian, he throws a leg over yours, pining you down on his bed, and says, “Stay.”

        You look into his blue eyes, still hazy with want for you, and you realize you have your answer. Not all escapes are destinations.

         _Stay_. 

**________________________**

        You wonder how seriously Brian takes you.

        Because, once upon a time, you told him he was being unfair to caution you against getting involved with Will, that you didn’t do casual sex, as if you were so above it…

        … and now look at you.

        You’re no one’s rock now. Not when Brian has his fingers inside you, and he’s brushing relentlessly against your prostate in a rhythm determined to take you apart. His counter top feels cold against your bare ass, but Brian is all heat between your legs, and you’re fucking yourself on his greedy fingers, and it’s just so…

        There’s no pride left to be had here because you’re completely open and exposed, legs around his waist, moans so loud they must hear you in the apartment next door. “Oh, God, Brian, yes, _please_ …”

        Brian grins against your throat.

        He bites your lip as you come and, shit, that’s going to bleed— yup, there’s a copper taste in your mouth, and Brian is licking at your stinging lip. It’s filthy and obscene, and you’ve never come harder before in your life than when he twists his fingers inside you and gasps your name.

        If sex with Will was a balm over your heart, then sex with Brian feels like therapy. The hard kind, with blood, sweat, and tears as you fight and claw your way through confronting your demons, good and bad.

        Brian laughs at you. He still can’t believe you would ever want it like this, with torn lips, finger-shaped bruises on your hips, and scratches down his back. He thought you’d want candles and soft music and sweet words…

        … but that’s how it was with Will, and right now you want to be as far as you can be from that.

        Brian is probably expecting you to lose this game of chicken at any moment, to hold up the white flag of surrender, but he’s clearly delighted when you don’t.

        If he thought you were such a saint, then why did he ever want you to begin with? You’ve known guys like Brian before, and they have no use for saints. Other than to ruin them.

        But Brian has already ruined you, has taken you apart with his tongue and teeth and put you back together so many times. He should have lost interest in you by now but…

        … it keeps happening.

**________________________**


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apartment.

        Brian’s apartment is the polar opposite of yours.

        His taste runs high-end. Yours runs more thrift store. Not that you couldn’t have a place like Brian’s. You just chose to go simple.

         _Liberal guilt_ , Will once teased.

        He was right. You’re grateful for everything you’ve been given, but your privileged upbringing embarrasses you in casual company. You were taught that money is a taboo subject for a reason.

        Will loved your apartment. You didn’t think he would after getting a taste of the high life courtesy of E.J Dimera. When he agreed to move in with you, he could have suggested you both get a nicer place— you would have, for him— but he didn’t. He was happy to live in squalor with you, and you loved him more for it.

        Will’s upbringing has always confused you. He’s left you with the impression of constant instability, his livelihood ever in flux depending on who his mother was dating/married to/blackmailing/etc. But Will has plenty of relatives with money, many safety nets floating in his periphery that he never seems to utilize or appreciate.

        (He might not always have a choice if your suspicions about Nick and Gabi are right. Custody lawyers are expensive.)

        You know he’s moved back in with his mother. He didn’t have to. He has any number of relatives who adore him and would happily take him in. His father is in town. E.J probably still keeps Will’s old apartment on standby should Will ever be tempted back to the dark side.

        If you asked him, he would probably cite his siblings as an excuse, but they didn’t exactly stop him from literally running out the door when you held up a key. You think the ties that bind are tighter between Will and Sami than he would like to admit.

        Brian clearly isn’t embarrassed by having money.

        Everything about him, from the apartment to the clothes to his taste in wine, speaks of privilege. He has real paintings on his walls and not just the typical, cheap college prints they sell outside the Student Union.

        Your curiosity overrides your typical aversion to the topic of money, and you ask, “How does a college student afford an apartment like this?”

        Brian looks up from his medical textbook. He’s lying on his stomach, naked except for a pair of reading glasses. You wish you had a camera because it’s quite a sight. He has a test in an hour, but he still took the time to make you breakfast and then to lick it off of you.

        You feel sticky and kind of gross in the aftermath, but he hasn’t yet asked you to kindly get off of his expensive-looking bed sheets. Nor has he kicked you out yet even though you’re clearly distracting him from his last-minute studying.

        “You’re one to talk,” he says, nudging your leg with his foot.

        True. Much to your chagrin, you come from money, too. But you paid for your apartment and everything in it with your own money that you made from hard work and sacrificed sleep. It’s not much, but it’s yours.

        Still, you end up sleeping over at Brian’s more often than not these days because you can’t stand going back to your sad, empty apartment. And you can’t bring yourself to bring him back there, not to the bed where you made love to Will for the first time and where you asked him to move in with you.

        Not to where you were happy.

        You don’t know why, but you’re kind of disappointed that Brian comes from money. Hypocritical? Sure, and maybe this marks you as weird, but you liked the idea of him being internally at odds with the clean-cut image he presents. No one is as confident as he pretends to be. Not really.

        Who understands that better than you?

        You think you’ve caught glimpses of the real him here and there. The truth was there all those months ago when he gently touched your face and said he would wait for you to get Will out of your system. True to his word, he came back for you.

        It was there in his hurt expression just days ago when he thought you were rejecting him (again). It was there in the way he ruefully rubbed his head and shifted his gaze from yours when he admitted that becoming comfortable in his own skin didn’t happen overnight.

        You jumped on this latest kernel of insight into him, sensing an in to a real conversation that wasn’t all about seducing you with Brian’s best lines and expensive red wine. Of course, he easily deflected you, more interested at the time in getting into your pants than letting you get into his brain.

         _Fair enough_ , you thought at the time.

        The revelation that he wears clear contacts most of the time is a welcome one. It makes him more… real.

        Brian goes back to his reading. Resting your chin on folded arms at the edge of the bed, you let your gaze slide lazily over the room until it lands on a picture sitting on his desk. Picture Brian has his arm around a pretty little girl with familiar eyes. She must be his little sister. Brian has never mentioned her to you. He never talks about anyone other than the occasional mention of his best friend, Neil, whom you already know.

        “Do you see your family a lot?” you ask.

        He ignores you at first and then says, “No,” without looking up.

        “Oh. But they’re in Salem, right?”

        “Some.”

        “Are they—?”

        “Sonny,” he says, cutting you off. “I really need to study.”

        You duck your head, embarrassed. “Right. Sorry.”

        You don’t know why you’re prying anyway. It’s just hard to get a read on Brian, and if the clues to the real him are anywhere, then they’re here in his apartment. But even the apartment feels like a façade, like something calculated to give a superficial impression.

        Last night, you read him just fine. He never hides his desire for you. Lust is an honest transaction between you.

        But in the cold light of day, you find yourself only too aware of the gaps between the guy you’re sleeping with and the guy who made you breakfast today, the guy who has a test and an actual life beyond you.

        You try to be quiet, but nervous energy has your foot tapping the bed until Brian pointedly rests his own leg over yours, halting the movement.

        He sighs and gives you a knowing look. He shouldn’t know you well enough to look at you like that. “What’s wrong, Sonny?”

        Biting your lip, you avoid his gaze and stare instead at your own finger as it makes invisible patterns on the sheet. “Brian, we’re friends, right?” You’ll never be friends like you and Chad are friends, but friends-with-benefits is still a kind of friends, isn't it?

        He looks relieved, and you wonder what he thought you were going to say. Smirking, he reaches under you and palms your cock. “Mmn. _Best_ friends.”

        You laugh, despite yourself. “Jerk. I thought you needed to study.”

        He places his text book, still open, into your hands and then rolls over so he’s covering your back. His glasses press into your skin when he mouths your shoulder, and your breath stutters even as you snort. “I’m really good at multitasking.”

        As it turns out, he really is.

**________________________**


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A month ago.

         _A month ago_ …

        It’s a strange dream that wakes you.

        One where you’re standing in a cave and all the people around you are mere shadows in a strange pantomime cast against a stone backdrop. Every time you try to touch someone, they evaporate under your fingers. After so many times, it starts to alarm you.

        You know you’re looking for Will, but you can’t find him because everyone looks the same.

        The sense of feeling bereft follows you into consciousness, and you’re already reaching beside you for reassurance even before you’re fully awake. When your hand finds only bedding, you’re up with a panicked intake of breath.

        As soon as the sleep fog clears, you realize you panicked for nothing. Will is still beside you. He just rolled over to the opposite edge of the bed. It was just a dream. He’s still here. You breath easier.

        It’s silly to let a dream get to you like this, but you want to be touching him, so you spoon up against his bare back and wrap your arms around him. Will hums in his sleep. You both fell asleep naked, and his bare skin is that wonderful, flushed kind of warm from rolling around in your sheets all night.

        You bury your face in his hair, and the familiar smell of Will’s shampoo is comforting. You want to inhale him. Pressing closer, you trace your lips over the shell of his ear. Will’s heart starts to beat a little faster beneath your palm.

        You’re clinging even though you don’t mean to. It’s not even the dream. More like the creeping awareness you’ve been trying to suppress that keeps whispering to you that something feels off.

        Will is here in your arms, as he has been for months now, but lately he’s been distant. Physically here, but mentally elsewhere.

        You want to tether him to the here and now with you.

        Will thinks you don’t see, that you don’t know there’s something he’s keeping from you. Maybe even something _big_ , though you have no idea what it could be. Doesn’t he know there’s nothing he could do that would scare you off? You’re in this for the long haul.

        This insecure feeling is all wrong for what you two have.

        You realize Will is awake when he turns his head to kiss you mid-nuzzle. The kiss is sweet and slow like dripping molasses. “Mmn. Morning,” he murmurs against your lips. You can already tell this is going to be one of the good mornings where he lingers in the moment and not one where he gnaws his bottom lip and won't look you in the eye.

        Maybe you’re psychically broadcasting your thoughts, because some of the sleepy haze clears from Will’s eyes, and he looks concerned. “You okay?”

        “Yes.” You kiss his shoulder. “I just love you. That’s all.”

        His bright smile makes your chest ache. He should always look so happy. “I love _you_.”

        “Good,” you say, sliding your hand lightly over his flank. Your fingers follow the contours, creating invisible maps of his body. Will sighs contentedly in your arms.

        But after a few moments, he starts to move a bit more insistently back against you. Smiling, you press in so your hardening cock rests against his ass. You rock lazily against him, in no rush, until Will makes a strangled sound. “Sonny…”

        You reach between his legs and gently fondle his cock. Will’s strangled sound becomes a gasp.

        You could keep him here, like this, forever. But you take pity on your keening boyfriend. “Turn over,” you say.

        A light press on his hip, and Will rolls over onto his stomach. He’s eager to please, but also eager to be pleased. He makes you smile.

        You crawl over him. Keeping your weight on your arms, you press your chest to his back just for the sensation of skin-on-skin. Starting at the base of his neck, you run your lips over his spine, pausing to lick and nip at various vertebrae as you move down his body. Will moans and arches toward your mouth.

        He’s so beautiful. You have to take a moment to sit back and marvel at him. All those months you waited for him because you knew it would be like this, that he would be worth it. You were right.

        Will looks at you over his shoulder. “Sonny?”

        It’s hard to believe you’re so close now to having everything you’ve ever wanted. But you are, and you’re not going to let dark thoughts or weird dreams ruin this for you.

        You smile reassuringly at him. _Will_ is everything you’ve ever wanted.

        You promise yourself then and there that you’ll do everything in your power to make sure he’ll never have reason to doubt it.

        You consider for a moment what exactly you want to do to him. And then you know. Running your hands over the back of his thighs, you say, “Up, baby.”

        Will lifts up onto his hands and knees with a breathless version of your name.

        Leaning forward, you lightly graze your teeth over his cheeks first, followed by a hint of tongue on his skin. Will pants into your pillow. You wonder if it was intentional that he grabbed yours instead of his.

        You spread his cheeks and dip your tongue inside him. Will’s whole body jerks. “Oh! Oh, Sonny. That’s…”

        You reach under him and run your fingers over his balls and then take his shaft in your hand, rubbing up and down the length in time with the thrusts of your tongue. Will can’t seem to decide which way he wants to move, back into your tongue or forward into your hand. His body trembles. He comes with a loud sob.

        Afterward, he pulls you up into his arms, and he kisses your face, your neck. You’re so wrapped up in him, he’s going to unravel you.

        For the first time in your life, you’re happy to unravel as long as he unravels with you.

 

**________________________**

 

        A month ago, you were happy and in love.

        You were moving in together.

        You were making love on one of those lazy Sundays and probably thinking you would have all the Sundays for the rest of your lives.

        Today, Will gives the key back.

        He won’t look you in the eye. “Yeah, I just, uh… figured I’d had it long enough.”

        Of course. He doesn’t need the key to your apartment because you aren’t together anymore.

        You thought you were ready for this conversation, but it hits you like a ton of bricks. You and Will never even had an official break-up conversation. It just kind of happened. It’s all going by too fast. You don’t even feel angry anymore. You just feel sad.

        You don’t want to sound desperate, you _don’t_ , so you shoot for nonplussed. “Will, there wasn’t a time table.”

        “I know,” he says.

        You wish he would look at you.

        “But I moved my stuff out already, and there’s no reason for me to keep it.”

        No reason at all.

        Ready? How could you be ready for this? It’s only been a month, a day, a _minute_ since you were safe and together and in love. Now, the key is back in your pocket as if it never left, and it weighs you down as if it were a thousand pounds.

        Will wants to be friends. Like you used to be. You don’t know how to tell him it doesn’t work that way. There is no time travel, no easy erasure of the past four months. You can’t go back to a time when you don’t know what it’s like to make love to him, to _be_ loved by him. You can’t pretend that being just friends will ever be enough ever again.

        Instead, you tell him you’ll always be there for him. You mean it at the time, but you don’t know if you’re actually strong enough for that. Could you ever be there as a shoulder to cry on when it’s someone else he wants? The very thought makes you feel sick.

        If you think this conversation is painful, then the worst part comes later when you have to put your apartment back to the way it was before, when you have to shove your clothes back into the center of the closet hanger from where you had pushed them over to make space for Will. Maybe you should have done this before, but a part of you was probably in denial that this would actually happen.

        Really, the worst part is trying to fill the spaces back up as if you were never making plans for a life you’re never going to have now.

        Once everything is back in place, you find yourself sitting at the edge of your bed and realizing that you’ve never felt lonelier before in your life.

        It feels over.

        And it doesn’t.

 

**________________________**

 

        You’re dozing late into the morning at Brian’s place.

        He left early for crew practice, and you haven’t been able to bring yourself to get up yet. It’s while you’re dozing that you end up slipping into a dream so real it’s almost a memory. You’re back at your place, in your bed with Will. You’re kissing, touching, and you’re so relieved he’s there you could cry.

        You wake up aroused and reaching for him.

        He’s not there this time. This time, you’re actually alone.

        The realization starts as a small kernel of disappointment, but the kernel soon grows into a larger miserable feeling until the misery becomes anxiety rooted in your chest and your body starts to fill up with nervous energy.

        You realize a second too late that you’ve let yourself slip into the onset of an anxiety attack. You haven’t had one of those in a long time. They are your least favorite part of depression. They’re unpredictable. One minute, you’re fine. The next, you’re not. Once one starts, there’s no telling how long it will last. An hour. A day. Your worst one lasted a week. That much stress over a prolonged period of time left your chest literally, physically aching and your nerves frayed.

        You have to get out of this room. You have to move. Activity is your best safeguard against panic attacks.

        Brian is too tall for you to be able to borrow his running pants, but you catch sight of his salmon pink sweatshirt sticking out of the hamper. Hopefully, he won’t mind since it was already dirty. When the fabric goes over your head, you can smell Brian on it and, for some reason, it makes you feel better. You grab a shirt, too. Your sneakers aren’t ideal for running, but they’ll have to do in a pinch.

        You’re almost out the door when you remember that Brian has tight running shorts that should fit you, and you double back into his room to search for them because running in jeans is absurd. You tell yourself you’ll have it all washed and put away by the time he gets back.

        The pound of the pavement beneath your feet is the best feeling in the world. The exertion clears your head. You don’t have to think about anything other than the thundering of your heart in your ears.

        You make your way out of Brian’s neighborhood, through Downtown Salem, and down passed the pier before you double back. You’re jogging through the Horton Square when someone unexpectedly steps out of the Brady Pub and directly into your path.

        “Woah!”

        Thankfully, the person catches you before you can knock them over.

        “I am so, so sorry! I— Will?”

        Your stomach drops. How much does the universe hate you that he would be the one you collide with? Then again, you chose to direct your run by the Brady Pub, so you can’t be too surprised when a Brady (or a Horton) wanders out of it. Christ, did you do this to yourself on purpose?

        He blinks at you, clearly shocked to find himself so close to your face. You pull away with an embarrassed smile. “Sorry, I didn’t see you.”

        Will laughs nervously. “Yeah, I got that.”

        “Sorry,” you say again, unsure of what else to say.

        “Sonny, it’s fine,” he says. “Actually, I was…” His voice trails off, and he frowns.

        “What?” you ask, maybe too eagerly. “You were what?”

        Will’s expression is pained. “That’s Brian’s sweatshirt,” he says, voice flat.

        Startled, you stare at him. How did…?

        “He wears it all the time to the gym.”

        You forgot they used to be friends. It’s kind of hard to imagine since you only ever saw them together once, and they were at odds even then. You don’t like the idea that you came between them, but that would probably be giving yourself too much credit anyway. How deep could the friendship have been? They only knew each other five minutes before you were knee-deep in a love triangle. You’ve never seen any indication that they miss each other’s company (not that they would show _you_ ).

        “You and Brian. That’s…”

        Will looks like he’s seconds away from bolting, his eyes filling with tears and looking everywhere but at you.

        “Will…”

        You’re hurting right along with him, but you can’t tell him it’s not what it looks like. It’s exactly what it looks like. You climbed out of Brian’s bed, where you had sex with Brian, and then you put on Brian’s clothes (because you’re sleeping together and you figured he wouldn’t mind).

        Brian has nothing to do with Will. He never needed to know about this thing you have going with Brian. You and this stupid pink sweatshirt. Leave it to Brian to have the only salmon-pink men’s sweatshirt in town, and leave it to you to pick it for your run. You’re always making the wrong choice.

        You feel like a complete bastard, but all you can think of to say is: “I’m not doing this to hurt you. You know that, right?”

        Will smiles sadly. “Sorry, but that actually kind of makes it worse.”

        “Oh. Will, I’m… I’m sorry.” You are so, so sorry. For both of you.

        “I know. I just… I have to go. Somewhere else.”

        “Okay,” you say. There’s a fascinating spot conveniently located near your shoe, so you don’t have to watch him walk away.

        Will makes it about ten steps away from you before he suddenly stops and turns back. He retraces his steps until he’s right in front of you. “No,” he says.

        You look up, surprised. “No? What—?”

        Before you know it, Will has grabbed your face and kissed you…

        … and you’re back in Common Grounds. Will is telling you again that he misses you every minute, every day, and you’re forgetting yourself, wanting nothing more in the world than to forget yourself so you can…

        With Will’s taste in your mouth and Brian’s scent from the sweatshirt in your nose, your brain malfunctions. You’re kissing Will back, gripping his jacket and pulling him closer. The leftover arousal from your dream that morning takes over, and you're kissing and kissing him.

        Will pulls back before you’re ready. “Sonny,” he gasps out, “just so you know, I’m not giving up on us. I’m just not.”

        He sounds determined. As if giving back the key was your idea. He said you should just be friends. He said…

        … he’s not giving up on you.

         _What?_

        Slack-jawed, you watch him walk away.

 

**________________________**

 

        You end up back at Brian’s apartment.

        There’s so much adrenaline pumping through your body that you can’t stay still. You find yourself pacing around the room like a fish trying to escape its bowl. You’re angry, you’re panicked, you’re exhilarated…

        … you’re still mid-pace when the sound of a key turning in the door alerts you to Brian’s return. You pause in the middle of the room.

        Brian must have come straight from practice, because he’s carrying his gym bag and still wearing his workout clothes. He smiles when he sees you. “Oh, you’re still… here.” His voice trails off.

        It’s like watching a hound suddenly catch a rabbit’s scent as his attention narrows in on you. Still and silent, he stares at you staring back at him. He takes in your heavy breathing, your pupils probably still blown wide with arousal. You see him process that you’re wearing his clothes.

        Door slammed, bag on the floor, and he’s across the room.

        You’re slammed back against the wall, already moaning at the contact. His hands are everywhere, and you’re clutching him, kissing him. It’s not enough. It’s never enough. You tear off his windbreaker, but it’s the only article of clothing that goes without a fight.

        Brian has to wear form-fitting spandex for crew practice. Loose clothes could get caught in the slides under the moving seats or in the oar handles as he’s rowing. Before, you admired the way the spandex hugged his body. Now, you just want it all off and out of your way.

        However, removing the spandex when you’re wrapped just as tight around him soon proves impossible, and you groan in frustration.

        Brian breaks away from your mouth with a breathless laugh. Taking over, he sheds the annoying layers while you run your hands over his skin as it's exposed. You’re both already sweaty, him from crew, you from the run, but you _do not even care_ right now. You want on him, in him. Or him in you. You really do not care.

        Remembering that you’re still dressed, too, you start to take off Brian’s sweatshirt. He catches your wrist and says, “Keep it on.”

        Oh. _Oh_. “Okay.”

        Finally naked, Brian leans back in so your bodies are pressed together against the wall. Holding your stare, so close your noses brush, he pushes down the borrowed shorts along with your underwear. Your mouth falls open when his hand brushes your cock. The sweatshirt stays on.

        You think you make some kind of animal noise, but suddenly you’re kissing again, Brian’s tongue back in your mouth, your arms around his neck, holding him in, and then down his back, clutching his ass. You just want to be touching.

        Brian moves his mouth down to your throat, and he does that thing where he’s sucking too hard and probably leaving marks as he goes. You won’t complain, not when you’ve discovered that you like it this way, when he’s just this side of too rough with you, like you’re desperate teenagers again.

        You like the idea that you can make him feel desperate. What that says about his effect on _you_ , though… Well…

        You whisper into his ear, “Fuck me, Brian.”

        You can feel the way your words shoot through him when his whole body kind of shudders and he buries his face in your neck to cover his helpless moan. He breathes you in at the place where your neck meets the collar of his sweatshirt, and his cock jumps against your leg.

        Brian kisses you again, and his fingers are between your legs, slipping between your ass cheeks, and working their way inside you. You feel balanced there, on the head of a pin, with nothing but Brian’s fingers to hold you up. _Yes_ , you think. Yes.

        You’re ready, you are, but then Brian is pulling back, saying, “Sonny, is this…?”

        Nope. No room for thoughts here.

        Before Brian can finish, you’re pushing him toward the bed. You wrestle at first for who’s going to be where, until Brian gets a hold of your wrists and pins them to the bed. He grins down at you, triumphant, but his eyes glaze over when you start rocking your body up against his so your cocks slide together. He releases your wrists to grip your hands in his instead.

        You’re too hot in the sweatshirt, and you want the full sensation of his naked skin on yours, but you hold your tongue because having it on seems to fuel Brian’s fire for whatever reason.

        You forget to care about the sweatshirt once Brian finally gets his cock inside you, because you’re beyond caring about anything else.

        You want to keep your feet on the bed so you can meet him thrust for thrust, but the angle doesn’t let him get as deep as he could be inside you. With a frustrated growl, he pulls out and yanks your legs up over his shoulders. You’re bent nearly in half.

        The protest dies on your tongue, because Brian is already pushing back inside you, deeper, harder, and it’s so good you can barely stand it.

        Head bowed, Brian comes in you with a deep moan, his hands clenching yours. You moan gratefully when he releases one of your hands so he can reach between you to finish you off.

        When Brian lifts his head again, his eyes warm and sated, he’s grinning at you like this has been the best thing ever.

        Closing your eyes on the sight, you give in to the pull and let it carry you into oblivion.

 

**________________________**

 

        Afterward, it’s with a sinking feeling in your gut that you realize…

        … you realize that even with Brian’s semen inside you, his sweat on your tongue, and his wet breath against your shoulder, it still doesn’t feel over.

 

**________________________**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Selections of dialogue were adapted from the February 6, 2013 episode (the "Will gives the key back" scene).


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex Kiriakis.

        You’re having dinner with your parents when she says it.

        “You seem better.”

        The fork halts midway to your mouth. “What?”

        Mom beams at you. “I don’t know. You just seem… _lighter_.”

        Dad clasps your shoulder. “It’s a good thing, Sonny.” He and Mom share a smile. It’s clear that, as far as they’re concerned, your grace period for this mourning thing is almost up. They have worried and fretted and given you more space than their instincts have allowed for, but now they’re ready for you to be moved on from this latest heartbreak. Time to be better, Sonny.

        You smile, too, as if you could be better, but you can’t really share in their optimism because you don’t feel “lighter.”

        If you’re in a good mood today, then it’s because Brian surprised you that morning with a mix of the latest Top 40 songs. He did it mainly to make fun of your music taste— it offends his “superior” Indie sensibilities in a way that uncomfortably reminds you of Will and his ridiculously obscure music collection— but you liked it.

        You liked it even more when Brian bent his head over your lap while your car was (thankfully) in park, and he sucked you off to the tune of Kelly Clarkson’s latest single.

        You have fun with Brian. That’s kind of the point of you and Brian. Fun. Distraction. Not recovery. Not… anything else.

        You don’t want to seem better. You aren’t ready to be better.

        … and none of these are things you can tell your parents.

 

**________________________**

 

        Will sends you a text.

         _I miss you_.

        Three little words, and they hit you with the force of a sledgehammer.

        Your first instinct is to delete it and pretend you never saw it in the first place.

        You save it instead, but promise yourself you won’t look at it (too much).

 

**________________________**

 

        It’s completely illogical that hearing that you seem better would actually make you feel worse.

        But you are you, and the connections your brain makes don’t always make sense.

        And maybe that’s why you drink a little too much of Brian’s wine that night and try to call Will while Brian is snoring on the bed behind you.

        You don’t know what you’re planning to say, but it’s suddenly very important that you talk to him. There’s a litany of _“I’m not giving up on us”_ playing over and over again in your head.

        What was he thinking, saying that to you? It’s not fair. Actually, none of this has been fair. Maybe that’s what you want to tell him. Or maybe you want to apologize again for accidentally cluing him in on what you’ve been up to with Brian. Not that you _need_ to apologize for that, but the broken look on Will’s face has been haunting your every waking moment so maybe you kind of do. And you don’t even know what to do with that kiss…

        You didn’t tell Brian. You’re not sure if you’re supposed to or if he would even care.

        Come on, of course he would _care_. You’re not that dense. But thinking about _why_ he would care leads to all sorts of questions about you and Brian that you aren’t ready to face yet. And, for all you know, he's been kissing other boys, too. (Right. Between you and all his other stuff, when would he have found the time?)

        You already feel guilty for hurting Will. Should you feel guilty for potentially hurting Brian, too? Your mind rebels at the notion. You and Brian have never really discussed what you are, but you at least know what you _aren’t_. Right?

        You need to talk to Will. Your vision blurs when you try to focus on your contacts list, so it’s really more of an estimate when you hit the call button.

        After a few rings, all it takes is a hesitant hello on the other end of the line for you to realize your error.

        “Sonny?”

        Oh, no. No, no, no.

        “H-hey, Alex.”

        A-for-Alex is nowhere near W-for-Will.

        Yet, somehow you called Alex. Your brother Alex who stopped speaking to you when you came out to him.

        He talks to you now (sort of). It’s taken years but your relationship has finally recovered to a place where you can exchange the occasional email. You rarely talk on the phone, both trusting the family grape vine to eventually reach each other with the important stuff.

        You’re Facebook friends, if that means anything. Through the pictures, you’ve formed an idea of what his life is like now in Texas even though you’re hardly a part of it.

        (You can’t help but wonder if he’s ever perused _your_ pictures. Did he ever see a picture of Will? Did he have an opinion?)

        Alex does an admirable job of pretending he’s happy you called. “What’s up, little bro?”

        Unexpectedly, you realize you want to tell him everything. You want him to make it all better just as he did when you were little, back when he still liked you and you adored him.

        And how illogical is _that_?

        “Nothing. How are you?” You put all your effort into not slurring your words while also trying to keep your voice down so as not to wake Brian. Really, what were you thinking, trying to call an ex-boyfriend two inches away from him? Stupid. You’re never drinking again.

        “Great. We’re just getting the baby down to bed.”

        Right. Alex is a father now. Father to a little boy that Alex and his wife already dress in little Cowboys onesies. The time your family spent living in Texas, however fleeting, gave Alex a certain regional loyalty when it comes to football. One day, Alex’s kid will likely do peewee football and little league and everything you once did, and Alex will be proud of him.

        You want off of the phone so bad, but it would be more awkward to just say goodbye now before some obligatory small talk. He’s going to wonder why you called.

        “How is my nephew?”

        You can hear the smile in Alex’s voice. “Great,” he says again. “He’s the best, Sonny. Really. He’s finally sleeping through the night and everything.”

        Your voice comes out thick. “That’s… that’s great, Alex.” You’ve always wanted to be an uncle, but you’ve never met this kid so you don’t really feel like one. Maybe one day.

        “How are _you_?” he asks.

        “Good,” you lie.

        “Great.”

        “Yeah.”

        “Why are you whispering?”

        “Oh, I’m… I don’t want to… It’s kind of late here, and I’m not by myself.” It's not really that late. Besides, Texas's time zone is only an hour earlier. Brian just had a day full of tests and a particularly draining crew practice (and you didn't exactly let him sleep much _last_ night), so he basically passed out as soon as he walked through the door. Unfortunately, that left you in the unenviable position of sad-drinking alone.

        And now your brother knows that he's talking to you while there is another man sleeping next to you. There’s a prominent pause on the other end of the line. “… Oh.”

        It’s more awkward now, and you can’t think of anything else to say. Apparently, Alex can’t either because the silence stretches thin.

        It makes you so damn sad because you used to have any number of things to say to Alex. It got to the point where you talked mostly in a rush so you could get it all out before something else stole his attention from you. Your family used to tease you about it, but Alex never did. Now, you can’t remember the last time you two talked on the phone.

        “Okay,” you say after the silence has gone on too long. “Well. I’ll let you get back to—”

        “Sonny?”

        “Yeah?”

        “Is everything, I dunno, okay?” He sounds as if he really wants to know. You wish you had some generic problems that wouldn’t require going into your romantic life, like a problem with the cafe or a professor. You remember Alex being good with that kind of stuff.

        As it were, there’s nothing you can say that he will actually want to hear about. You’ve made some progress in regards to him accepting you, but you’re still wary of pushing it too fast, too soon.

        Three years after the fact is apparently still too soon.

        So, you say, “Yeah, everything is fine.”

        “Oh. Okay. Good, I mean. It’s just… I talked to Mom. I heard about… you know.”

        He heard about _you know_. Humiliation burns behind your eyelids when you squeeze your eyes shut. “Oh.”

        “I’m sorry.”

        You take a deep, calming breath before you say, “Thank you.”

        “I heard… Well, I heard you were really happy. Shit, sorry. That was the wrong thing to say, wasn’t it?”

        “No, it’s… it’s fine. That you said that. It’s okay.” The words don’t seem to come out in the right order.

        “Break-ups suck,” he says, sounding sympathetic. “I know it seems hard right now, but that’s not forever. Okay?”

        He sounds so much like he used to that your heart swells and you don’t trust yourself to speak without embarrassing yourself.

        It occurs to you that maybe he’s missed speaking to you, too. It takes two not to speak after all. Maybe he isn’t disappointed in you anymore. Wouldn’t that be nice?

        “Sonny, are you… are you okay? Really?”

        You must be really, really _not_ if he’s asking you that.

        And now, suddenly, you do want to be better like Mom thought you were. Because this feeling is so awful. You’ve waited years for Alex to be your big brother again, but it’s too much right now when you’re drunk and sad and tired.

        “Yeah.,” you say, rubbing at your eyes. “But listen, Alex, I really have to go now. I just wanted… I just wanted to say hey. Okay?”

        “Oh. Yeah, okay. Well, I’m glad you called, Sonny.”

        You want that to be true more than anything. “Me, too. Bye.”

        “Bye.”

        At the click, you find yourself staring at the phone in your hand as if you could psychically will Alex back onto the line. You want him back, but you’re also relieved to be off the phone (because your feelings are messy like that right now).

        Movement behind you has you realizing that Brian is awake and sitting up in bed. Because you woke him up, obviously. He regards you with a curious expression.

        “My brother,” you say before he can ask.

        Brian doesn’t say anything, just watches you watch the phone, and then you hear him sigh. He scoots up the bed, sheets tangling around his waist, until he’s sitting on the edge with you.

        You’re sorry, even though you don’t say it. He should be resting after his long day, not stuck dealing with you.

        “You don’t get along?” he asks.

        “Not really.”

        “The gay thing?”

        Your shrug, of course, means _yes_.

        Brian sighs again and rubs his head, further mussing his bed-head. It’s kind of ridiculous how he never looks unattractive no matter the circumstances.

        You sit together at the edge of the bed in silence. You don’t elaborate, and he doesn’t ask. You like that he’s there, and you wish you were alone. Sometimes, even you don’t get you.

        “My father doesn’t speak to me,” Brian says.

        The non sequitur catches you off guard, and you end up gaping at him. “What?”

        Brian’s voice is flatter than you’ve ever heard it before. “He pays for the apartment and school, but that’s it. My mother lies to him about where she’s going when she brings my little sister to see me.”

        “Oh.”

        And, finally, here is the man behind the curtain, the one you were reaching for all those weeks ago. Your mind churns at Brian’s revelation, rearranging your perception of him to fit this new piece of the puzzle. Brian has always struck you as something of an island. You had no idea how right you were. That’s… awful. But it explains a lot.

        Suddenly, Brian makes a whole lot more sense. Except for the part where he’s sharing this with you.

        You’re not at that place yet where you can share and compare the scars with each other. You’re kind of friends, but not really friends. You’re lovers, but not really lovers. You’re mostly just hovering in a space that you hollowed out for yourselves somewhere in between all that. So, all this is new territory for you. It feels dangerous to say anything, as if you could ruin everything with a careless word.

        You never even really talked about Alex with Will, except to say that he eventually came around after an initial freak-out (technically true). Maybe because Will has always loved that your family is whole and secure (the supposed opposite of his).

        Will never really heard you try— admittedly, not _that_ hard— to tell him that the nuclear version is new, that your parents have married and divorced an insane number of times and that one of the divorces was in Dubai. Your mother moved out, returned to the states, and _left_ you there in a country where being gay could mean the death penalty. Not that she knew.

        (But _you_ did.)

        She went back to the states and took the twins, Vic and Joey, with her. Alex had already returned to his beloved Texas by then. You stayed behind with your father and his haunted eyes because someone had to. You weren’t going to just leave him behind.

        Funny that, in the time since, you’ve learned that leaving people behind is the best way to avoid being left. But you would never do that to your dad.

        He's your hero a thousand times over. He’s Superman. He didn’t have to say it for you to know that he missed your mother every day they were apart. All the same, he got up every day, took care of you, and did his best to hide the ache until there was no longer a reason for it. You learned from him that pride can be a virtue. You learned from him how to be brave.

        But he was left. And so were you. Many, many times.

        On some level, Brian gets it. He probably gets _you_. And now he’s shared something with you, something intimate and revealing, and that must mean he trusts you.

        You don’t know what to say. You’ve done nothing to earn his trust.

        Reaching between your bodies, you squeeze his hand. Brian gives you a stern look. “I didn’t tell you that so you could feel sorry for me.”

        No, he told you that because he wanted you to feel less alone. It’s working, though now you feel like a jerk for letting him think your strained relationship with Alex is anything like his being disowned by his father.

        Regardless, you’re both members of a club no one wants to join. You don’t feel sorry for him, but you do feel sad on his behalf. It’s not the same, though Brian might see it that way.

        “Don’t make this a thing,” Brian says. He’s clearly embarrassed. Embarrassed to have revealed himself or embarrassed for you and your weepy, drunk calls?

        “I’m not.” Your expression is innocent, but he rolls his eyes like it isn’t.

        When he tries to pull his hand away, you tighten your grip. If you let him go now, then it’s going to be awkward. You need to show him that he’s wrong, that you aren’t pitying him.

        For lack of a better idea, you cup the side of his face and turn him into a kiss. When it comes to Brian, this is what you know. This is how you communicate. You’re safer in familiar territory.

        The kiss is soft and surprises you for the nervous flutter it inspires in your stomach. You don’t know who’s comforting who anymore. Just so long as you don’t make anything any worse, you’re probably good.

        You pull back just far enough to say, “Brian, no one feels sorry for you. You’re too arrogant to pity.”

        He raises an eyebrow at that. “Gee, thanks.”

        “I meant it as a compliment.”

        “Strange compliment,” he says, though his eyes are trained on the pajama pants you’re pushing down your legs.

        It goes without saying that Brian doesn’t want to have an in-depth discussion about his father with you. You’re okay with that. You don’t want to talk about Alex either. Or Will, for that matter. You came dangerously close to calling him and… you don’t even know what.

        There are other ways you and Brian communicate. This is one of them.

        You think Brian gets you. You don’t really get Brian, not yet, but maybe you’re starting to.

 

**________________________**

 

        You think the subject is closed.

        Before you know it, you’ve left the edge of the bed to straddle Brian’s lap. With knees digging into the mattress on either side of his legs, you’re moving up and down on his fingers.

       Brian surprises you by having a coherent thought. He pulls out of a kiss to say, “I’m arrogant, huh?”

        You’re grinning, and your response is half-moan when he twists his fingers just so. “Oh, the _worst_.”

        "You love it," he growls.

        "Yeah," you gasp because you kind of do.

        You’re more drunk now, on this, than you were from the wine. This is so much better than thinking, so much better than worrying. You let your head fall back into his grip when Brian cups the back of your neck. He pulls you forward so he can run his tongue up your throat. The sound you make is low, guttural.

        Brian’s stubble grazes sensitive skin when he speaks against your neck. “Want to know something?”

        You’re honest. “Not really.” Why is he trying to talk to you _now_? Your brain is basically offline, and that’s _his_ fault.

        Brian snorts. “ _Sonny_.”

        Okay, okay. You lift your head and try to concentrate on what he’s saying, though it’s hard when his fingers are still moving inside of you and your thighs are starting to ache in a way that should bother you more than it does.

        “They don’t matter.”

        They… what?

        Confused, you start to pull back. You don’t get far before Brian drags you back into a rough kiss that turns into another and another. Reliable as rain, the lust moves in to crowd out the more complicated emotions.

        You drop your forehead onto his shoulder with a frustrated groan when he starts talking again. Brian runs his free hand through your sweaty hair. “They want to hold us back, but there’s no going backwards once you’ve had this.” His breath is hot against your ear after he places a wet kiss there. “I won’t give this up for _anyone_.”

        You think he means sex— of course he does— but you can barely focus let alone hear anything over the rush of _yes, please, more_ in your head. “ _Brian_ ,” you whine. You want more than fingers.

        Brian knows exactly what you want. “Up,” he says.

         _“Up, baby,”_   you remember.

        Your heart doesn’t just skip a beat; it jerks to a full stop. _No_. You do _not_ want Will inside your head now. But you never seem to get far from him, do you? You’re shuddering before you can help it.

        You gasp when Brian eases you down onto his cock. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you hide your face in the warm skin there so you won’t have to meet his intense gaze. He says, quiet and intimate, “No one else matters.”

        For a hot, blissfully numbing moment, he makes you believe him.

 

**________________________**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter works off of my personal head-canon backstory for Sonny and Alex's relationship that you might recognize from my other fic _Your Dog Boys of Summer_ , which is in many ways the mirror sibling of this one.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snow in Salem.

         The morning after your talk with Alex, you’re lying in bed next to Brian, and you’re kissing.

         There’s still time before either of your alarms go off. You could be savoring those last vestiges of sleep, but Brian woke you up with a kiss on your shoulder and a hand on your hip.

         You were trading soft kisses back and forth before you were even fully awake. You’re awake now, even if you still feel half-immersed in dreams. Brian’s mouth is so gentle on yours, and it’s never been like this before, a slow, leisurely exploration of each other’s mouths with no move to do more…

         … until you realize you’ve been kissing for ages without ever feeling the passage of time.

         Maybe this simple realization shouldn’t result in an anxiety attack.

         But it does.

 

 

**________________________**

 

 

         In no time at all, your house of cards starts to crumble down around you.

         If you don’t notice right away, then it’s probably because everything has been crumbling for a while now.

 

 

**________________________**

 

 

         When you leave the warmth of Brian’s apartment to open Common Grounds, you’re anticipating a typical winter morning in Salem. You're bundled up in preparation for a mere chill in the air, but you aren’t expecting to see snow drifts covering the ground.

         The first real snow of Salem’s latest winter, and it sneaked in while you were sleeping.

         Your walk to work feels as if it’s through a whole new town. All the stains, the secrets, and the decay are invisible. For at least an hour before the rest of the town wakes up, you have the privilege of seeing Salem look clean and renewed. For the first time since summer left and took its warmth along with it, winter doesn’t feel oppressive.

         It’s nice.

         On your way passed the Brady Pub, you pause long enough to see that it’s still dark inside. Will’s great-grandmother Caroline hasn’t come downstairs to open shop yet.

         Following a whim, you run your finger through the ice on the window until a smiley face looks back at you. Feeling happily young and dumb, you smile back.

         Then, you think of Caroline seeing it.

         You erase it with the speed of a guilty child and continue on your way.

 

 

**________________________**

 

 

        Around 9 o’clock that morning, Will sends you another text.

        You open it with more than a little trepidation. A moment later, you’re smiling because he's sent you a picture of Johnny and Sydney.

        Stuffed into puffy snowsuits, their curls peaking out from beneath wool caps, Johnny and Sydney beam up at the camera. They’re hugging a lopsided, one-armed snowman they must have made. There’s a blue plaid shirt delicately draped around the snowman’s shoulders that you recognize as belonging to Will. You can easily imagine the kids begging him to take them out to play in the snow and him agreeing despite having a class you know he has to get to.

        They make for such a sweet image that you don’t even think about it before you save the picture as your phone's background.

        You go back and forth on whether to send Will a response, even going so far as to write, erase, and re-write multiple drafts.

        Eventually, you just give up on the idea with a sigh and go about your day.

 

 

**________________________**

 

 

        In celebration of the snow, Brian’s crew teammates host a party in the Student Union.

        After a full day of classes and a split shift at Common Grounds that had you both opening _and_ closing, you’re not really in the mood for the equivalent of a frat party. Brian assures you his teammates are less obnoxious than that.

        You pretend to be absorbed with cashing out your register because Brian is leaning over the counter and giving you big, hopeful eyes that you can’t look dead-on without laughing.

         “It will be fun,” he says.

         “I have to close.”

         Jackie chooses that moment to look up from scrubbing the counter. “Oh, I can do that, Sonny.” Until this very moment, she was your favorite employee, always ready to offer an extra hand when you needed it. You really don’t need it now, though.

         “But…”

         “Go on,” she says. “Have a good time.”

         Brian smirks at you.

         Despite your obvious reluctance, Brian seems strangely eager for you to go. He’s usually content to hide out with you, and he’s never talked about introducing you to his friends before. You’ve essentially had him all to yourself. Now, he really wants you to go to this party with his teammates.

        You don’t get it because things have been kind of strained with Brian since that morning you made out in his bed. The awkwardness you wanted to avoid after he revealed his estrangement from his father has hung on with death claws— and, ironically, for a completely different reason.

         It’s your fault for freaking out about a couple kisses. You aren’t embarrassed that he knows about Alex, but maybe Brian is embarrassed for having told you about his dad. You don’t know because you haven’t pried. He hasn’t either. Maybe Brian has just been reacting to what he’s been detecting from you. Or maybe all the awkwardness is just coming from you.

         Either way, things have been weird and it’s forced you into reevaluating your situation.

         “Well?” he prompts.

         “Brian… fine. Okay.”

         He grins, clearly pleased to have gotten his way. “Okay.”

         Ultimately, you give in more so because it means a night out than because of Brian's coaxing. It’s starting to feel a little claustrophobic in the cocoon you’ve built for yourself in Brian’s apartment. It’s starting to mess with your head.

         As in how it’s becoming increasingly obvious that you’ve essentially moved in with Brian. You got tired of packing and unpacking your overnight bag, so your toothbrush is beside his on the sink, your shampoo left in his shower. That same overnight bag has clean clothes from your apartment. Yesterday, Brian asked what you wanted for dinner. That wouldn’t be weird in itself, except that he asked you in the morning before you even left for work with the obvious assumption that you would be having dinner later together. And he was right, because you did.

         There’s no way Brian hasn’t noticed. He hasn’t said a word about it.

         You also maybe feel a little guilty, because for a few days after the fact, you tried finding reasons to avoid him. You ignored a couple texts. Unready to return to your own apartment, you hid out for a few nights at the Kiriakis mansion with your family. You told yourself that Brian would appreciate getting some of his space back.

         This would be night three of hanging out with Uncle Victor and Aunt Maggie. It would be, except that— in typical Brian fashion—he leaves you no room to think, crowding you in and forcing you to deal with him.

         It’s probably only fair when you’ve been crowding him so much lately.

 

 

**________________________**

 

 

         “Do your teammates know?” you ask on the walk over to the Student Union. “About you?” If you’re going to be stuck playing the role of his “good buddy,” then you want to know in advance.

         Brian gives you a look that makes you feel ashamed of yourself. “Sonny, I don’t lie about who I am or what I want.”

         The first time you met Brian, he put you off by being so indignant with Will for being more ashamed of his sexuality than of being thought a murderer. You still don’t think he was necessarily being fair to Will, but Brian seems devoted to living an honest life. You of all people have to appreciate that.

         You can also understand being frustrated when people fail to live up to your high expectations of them.

         “Good,” you say.

         Brian throws an arm around your shoulders, and he keeps it there until you’re shaking hands with his teammates in the Student Union. Four tall, handsome guys who greet you warmly. It’s kind of hilarious how they all tower over you. You’re a Lilliputian in a land of Gullivers.

         One of them sizes you up before he snickers and claps Brian on the shoulder.

         A familiar fear creeps up, one that you remember all too well from high school. It’s the one that reared its ugly head whenever you thought someone was making fun of you, maybe because they somehow sensed the truth about you.

         You quickly shove it down and keep smiling because Brian is smiling and seemingly at ease so they must not be making fun of you. It’s all in your head. It’s almost always just in your head. Except for T. And Nick.

         You inwardly sigh at yourself. Do the ugly feelings have to follow you everywhere? Can’t you just relax and have a good time and get to know all these demigods Brian apparently spends his every waking minute with when he isn’t with you?

         Emerging from the crowd, Neil suddenly appears at Brian’s shoulder. He says something into Brian’s ear that makes him laugh.

         You paste on as friendly an expression as you can manage. It must not be very convincing, because Neil greets you with a guarded hello that you return in the same vein. You were casual friends once, but that basically disintegrated a long time ago.

         It doesn’t help that every time you look at him, you see Will and Neil kissing up against a wall. You remember the sinking feeling low in your gut as you realized that even if Will did eventually come to terms with wanting men, then he still might not want _you_.

         He did though. Want you.

         With that in mind, you and Neil are both mature enough to let the tension fade away, but for some reason it just kind of settles between you.

         The strain in your interaction isn’t exactly subtle. Neil and Brian exchange a loaded look until Brian abruptly steals Neil’s plastic cup out of his hands and takes a long drink from it.

        He gives Neil an obnoxious smile, to which Neil just rolls his eyes. He looks more amused than annoyed, and he lets Brian keep the cup for another drink before he steals it back.

         You try to pay attention to what one of the demigods is saying because you simply do not want to know.

         You and Neil are strangely positioned in this web. You originally met Neil through mutual friends in a class you shared. You introduced Will to Neil, who introduced Brian to Will, who introduced Brian to you. The circles are enough to make a person dizzy.

         If you regret introducing Will to Neil, then you know that Will must regret introducing you to Brian. You wonder if Neil regrets introducing his best friend into your drama with Will. Probably.

         When Brian and his friends start talking about someone you’ve never met and the hilarious thing they did, you let your gaze drift around the room until you catch sight of familiar blond hair.

         You straighten instinctively, your eyes trained on the blond. There are too many people in the way for you to get a good look. For a second, you lose sight of him as the crowd of people shifts. You nearly take a step after him.

         Then, the crowd shifts again, and he’s there. He turns and…

         … it’s not Will. From the back, they looked similar, but that’s not him.

         Your sigh is half relief and half disappointment.

         You realize Brian is looking at you with a grim expression.

         “What?” You sound defensive even to yourself.

         He shrugs.

         Neil’s eyes flick between you and Brian over the rim of his cup. There’s no way to tell what he’s thinking without outright asking, and you’re not about to do _that_. If not for the steady stream of chatter from Brian’s oblivious teammates, then you three would probably be standing in complete silence.

         When someone touches your arm and says your name, you turn to see a beautiful blond smiling at you— just not the one you were expecting.

         You’re still trying to place her when T appears at her side. Right. Audrey. T’s girlfriend, Audrey. She's looking lovely in a pink sweater dress that hugs her curves in just the right ways. Her teeth might actually rival Brian's for the bizarrely perfect award.

         T looks proud as hell to have his arm around her. “Sup, Sonny?” he says.

         “What are you doing here?” you blurt out.

         “It’s a _party_ ,” he says as if you’re slow. “What are _you_ doing here?”

         He has a point. You just weren’t exactly expecting to run into him.

         Audrey touches his arm, and T’s demeanor instantly shifts back to friendly. “I was hoping we’d run into you,” he says.

         “Do you remember me, Sonny?” she asks. “I’m—”

         “Audrey,” you say. “Yes. Of course I remember you. Hi.” You greet her with considerably more warmth than you did T. After just one meeting, you already like her more than you ever liked him.

         Audrey introduces you to her brother, whom you somehow missed standing directly beside her. “This is Sam.”

         Blond like Audrey, Sam has that corn-fed, All-American look. He shakes your hand with a wide smile (the perfect teeth must be genetic). “Hi, Sonny. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

         You eye T again. “Really.”

         Sam’s gaze shifts to beside you, and if it's possible then his smile becomes a little brighter. Brian shakes his hand and introduces himself.

         You realize he was probably waiting for you to do the introductions, so you do the rounds. When you get to T, you give him a warning look, but he’s on his best behavior (likely because Audrey is standing next to him).

         Sam apparently recognizes Brian from watching his crew matches. “That last race was intense,” he tells Brian. “You guys were amazing.”

         Brian ducks his head as if he’s feeling modest, but you know better. He doesn’t _do_ modest. “Thanks, man. It was a close race.”

         "No, really! You guys were great."

         You look down in surprise when Audrey twines her arm around yours. She whispers into your ear, “Crew is that sport with the rowing, right?”

         You keep your voice at a conspiratorial level. “Right.”

         “Oh, good. I wasn’t sure. Sports are a foreign language to me.”

         “Just smile and nod," you tell her. "It’s what I always do.” Except for football, you mentally amend. After years spent in Texas, you know everything there is to know about football. Brian has tried explaining the more intricate aspects of crew, but to you it's still just a race.

         “Me, too.”

         You smile at each other, and maybe you fall a little in love with her. Beautiful, charming, and apparently a walking douche-bag antidote. How the hell did T manage to snag someone like Audrey?

         Oh, right. By _lying_.

         As if he can hear your thoughts, T chooses that moment to smirk at you. He clearly finds something hilarious.

         Stuck between him on your right and Neil watching you on your left, you figure this is as good a time as any to make an escape.

         Gently disentangling yourself from Audrey, you touch Brian’s arm to get to his attention. “I’m going to get a drink.”

         He looks at you as if he knows exactly what you’re doing. But you’re surrounded by people, so he can’t exactly call you on it. Instead, Brian takes Neil’s drink again— “Hey!”—and basically chugs the rest of it down.

        You leave with a sigh. You don’t know what his problem is. You don’t want to be in a bad mood, but you did warn him that you already had a long day before he decided to drag you here.

         Making your way over to the drinks table, you can’t help but scan the faces around you. No one is familiar.

         You jump, startled, when T’s voice pops up beside you. “Don’t you own anything that isn’t a button-up?”

         “Are you following me?”

        T snorts. “You know, it’s a wonder we aren’t better friends.”

         “Yeah, it’s a wonder.” You pick up an empty cup from the drinks table, more for show and having something to fiddle with than anything.

         T just looks at you with a smug air until you finally give in and ask, “What? What is it, T?”

         “Go ahead. Ask me. You know you want to.”

         “Ask you what?”

         “About Will.”

         Your tone is flat. “I wasn’t going to ask you.”

         “Yeah, sure.”

         Your inclination is to be stubborn, but T is right (for once). You do want to ask. Defeated, you sigh and ask, “How is he?”

         “Not good, Sonny.”

         You stiffen immediately. “What’s wrong?”

         “Gabi and that Nick guy are going to eat him alive. That’s what’s wrong.”

         You look closer at him, surprised that he would get that. “Has Gabi said anything to you?”

         “We aren’t exactly _compadres_ anymore.”

         “Then how do you…?”

         “Um, because I have _eyes_? Anyone can see that Will is getting snowballed here. Well, anyone but _him_. He needs you.”

        The empty cup gets bent in your anxious hands. “What am I supposed to do about it?” It’s not your baby. You have no say at all.

         “I dunno. Be his back-up or whatever.”

         It’s not like this hasn’t occurred to you. Picking up after Will’s messes is hardly a new concept for you. Not just Will either. Your role has always been to hand-hold everyone else through their stuff. You are the rock, the stable one everyone can count on.

         Where is  _your_ rock?

         You want to help Will. You want to make everything okay again for him, will always want things to be okay for him, but…

         “Look, I… can’t.”

         “You can,” he says, looking disgusted with you. “You just won’t.”

         How bizarre has your life become when the guy who once tried to punch the “pretty” off you feels completely comfortable judging you?

         Or when even T seems to know what you should do when you have no idea whatsoever?

         “Well, this conversation has clearly been a waste of time,” T says cheerfully. “Let’s see how the other end is doing.” He waves at Audrey.

         Leaving her brother with the crew team, she comes bouncing over. T catches her hand and twirls her once. It would be adorable if it were anyone but T.

         “I think it’s going well,” she says.

         “What is?” you ask.

         She looks pleased as punch. “My brother and that guy.”

         “What guy?” you ask even though you can clearly see who Audrey’s brother is talking to.

         “Brian-what’s-his-name. We thought they might hit it off. We so called it.” She and T high-five.

         They brought Audrey’s brother for Brian?

         “You don’t even know Brian,” you say, feeling as if you’re missing something. You know T _saw_ Brian prior to tonight, because he once accused you of trying to make your customers throw up by “shagging” him next to the scones.

         “He’s friends with you, right?” T says. “That’s all the recommendation I need.”

         Is he serious?

         Your eyes narrow. “Has Will talked to you about Brian?”

         T just shrugs.

         “They would make a cute couple. Don’t you think?” Audrey says.

        Would they? You watch Brian interact with Sam. Audrey’s brother is handsome. If he’s anything like Audrey, then he’s probably charming and nice, too. Brian is always charming (or trying to be), so it doesn’t necessarily mean anything that they’re clearly being charming together over there.

         Audrey is watching you. Everyone seems to be doing that tonight. "Is it okay, Sonny? If we set them up?"

         Is it?

         "Of course it is," T answers for you.

         "Sonny?"

         Part of you wants to say, no, it's not okay. It's not okay at all. But... well, why not?

         "He's cute," you say, as if that's answer enough. She seems relieved, so maybe it is.

         “I need to find the Ladies’ Room," she says. "I’ll be right back. Behave yourselves. Especially you, Sonny,” she says with a wink.

         T gives a dramatic sigh. “Okay, but don’t leave me alone with this guy too long.”

         She laughs. You don’t.

         The second she’s out of earshot, you turn on T. “What the hell are you doing?”

         He still has that insufferable smirk on his face. “What are you talking about?”

         “You know!”

         “What’s your problem, Sonny? Why do you care?”

         T must read something in your expression because he makes a face at you. “Ugh. I knew it. You are involved with that guy.”

        You bite back the automatic denial because this is _T_. What’s the point? “If you knew, then why did you bring Audrey’s brother?”

         T puts his hand to his heart. “Everyone deserves love, Sonny.”

         You think your head might actually explode. Any more time with T, and it really just might.

         “Brian isn’t any of your business.”

         “Whatever, man. You should have seen your face when I said Will's name. You’re being a dumb ass. Forget this guy and get back with Will. Why don’t you just forgive him already?”

         You have to appreciate his sheer audacity. Of all the people to give you advice, T is the last person you want to hear it from. You tell him so, and T rolls his eyes at you.

         “It’s like you don’t even care about him.”

         Why the hell would you ever bare your soul to T? Or to anyone ever again? What has wearing your heart on your sleeve ever gotten you besides another hole in it? You’re going to try it the other way this time.

         Anyway, what does he know about it? T wasn’t there when you had to go back to your empty apartment and erase all evidence of Will ever having been there. He wasn’t in the church that day to see you humiliated while all your dreams turned to ash.

         Audrey returns, and T instantly becomes Stepford T again.

         “See? I wasn’t gone more than a minute.”

         “Even that minute was too long.”

         You have to agree with him.

         She looks at you with concern. “Are you all right, Sonny?”

         “There's nothing wrong with him,” T says. “Right, Sonny?”

         Oh, sure.

         It's with a huge surge of relief that you realize someone is waving at you from across the room. It’s Abigail. She might as well be a godsend.

         Before you go, you tell Audrey, “You know you’re way too good for him, right?”

         "Hey!"

         Audrey blushes. “I don’t know about that.”

         “Trust me. You are.”

         You leave Audrey and T and practically run to your cousin.

         “Miss me?” she teases.

         “You have no idea.”

         She brought a coffee from Common Grounds. There’s a reason she’s your favorite cousin. “How did you get Jackie to make you a drink after closing?”

         “I was extremely adorable, of course.”

         “Of course,” you agree.

         “I wasn’t really in the mood for alcohol tonight, you know?”

         She needn’t have bothered. Beside the bowl of jungle juice is a dispenser full of hot apple cider. “See?” Brian said when he showed you. “ _Classy_.” You weren't curious enough to test that theory.

         Abigail just arrived, but you ask her, “Want to get some air?”

         Her eyebrows go up, but she says, “Sure.”

         Outside, you offer your arm, and Abigail takes it with a smile. Together, you stroll a little ways down the arbor until you come to a low wall. You brush the snow off so you can both sit.

         “This is just so unlike you,” Abigail says.

         She knows about you and Brian. You had to tell her after she caught him kissing you in the backroom of Common Grounds when you were supposed to be doing inventory. (You're really _awesome_ at avoiding people.)

         “I guess I don’t understand.”

         Abigail is disappointed in you. And you get it. You do. You know she’s an incurable romantic— so were you once— but does she think she’s more disappointed than you are? Will was going to be your whole life. It still kind of feels as if he is even though you aren’t together.

         “You’ll like Brian,” you say, “when you get to know him.”

         Abigail likes everyone. She’s cool like that. You have a feeling she and Brian would banter well off each other. Brian would probably enjoy trying to get her to blush, and Abigail would call Brian out on his bull. You’re already prepared to be rolling your eyes over their antics.

         “Are we going to get to know each other? Does that mean you’re getting serious with him?”

         The question takes you off guard, and you’re saying _no_ before you even think about it.

         “Then why would we get to know each other?”

         You feel irrationally irritated with her. “Just never mind,” you say. You don’t know why you implied they would be getting to know each other. It was just something to say in the moment.

         This is precisely what you’ve been avoiding. When it was just you and Brian, you didn’t have to justify yourself to anyone. You and Brian bring this… _thing_ you’re doing out of the dark just once, and you’re already hearing it from all sides.

         Abigail sighs. There’s a wistful expression on her face. Her latte must be cold by now. She hasn’t touched it. “Brian is beautiful, Sonny.”

         "And he knows it," you say, smiling slightly.

         “I just feel really bad for Will.”

         She might as well have just hauled off and punched you. You draw back as if she had. “Why would you say that to me?” Whose side is she on?

         “I’m sorry, but Will is my cousin, too, and he’s going to be a father before he’s even old enough to legally buy a beer. That would be sad in itself, but on top of that, he’s lost the love of his life. Gabi has Nick, but Will is all alone.”

         The ugly words are out of your mouth before you can stop them. “He’s _nineteen_. There will be other ‘loves of his life.’” The words sound about as hollow as you feel.

         Abigail looks suitably shocked. “You don’t really believe that.”

         No. You don’t. You’ve been in love before, but never like this. Not like with Will.

         “You sound so cynical. Where is the Sonny who loves Valentine’s Day and Hallmark commercials? I know I've seen you cry at one of those before.”

         You rub at your eyes wearily. “He’s tired, Abigail.”

         “You’re too young to be tired like that.”

         “Okay, Aunt Maggie.”

         She hits your arm in feigned outrage. “Hey, I know things!”

         “If you say so.”

         “ _For instance_ , I know he misses you like crazy. It must be hard for him to see you’ve already moved on.” She gives you a _look_.

         The irritation takes over, and you’re snapping at her, all the pent up bitterness suddenly spilling over. “I haven’t _moved on_ , Abigail. To be ‘moved on,’ I would have to be able to go at least a single day— a single _hour_ — without missing him. I wouldn’t still wake up in the middle of the night because he isn’t next to me. I would be able to listen to my favorite songs again without thinking about him. It wouldn’t make me miserable to hear _he’s_ miserable even though I’m so mad at him I could scream. This conversation wouldn’t feel like freaking torture.”

         When Abigail actually tears up, you regret raising your voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

         She smiles and squeezes your hand. “Sonny, you still love him.”

         Of course you still love him. You never stopped.

        You bury your face in your hands. “Doesn’t it matter at all that he broke my heart?” You feel like glass being pressed in on from both sides. No matter which way you bend, you still break in half.

         Abigail puts her arm around your hunched shoulders and gives you a cousinly squeeze. “Of course it does. Sonny, of course it does. But you love each other, and that means one day you’re going to forgive him.”

         “What if I can’t?”

         “You can. You will.” She makes it sound so easy, so inevitable.

         “Even if I could forgive him… He’s going to be a father, Abigail. His life is going to be diapers and bottles and a kid.” And _Gabi and Nick_. “Where do I fit in there?”

         And what would you do with Brian?

         “As long as you have each other, you’ll figure it out.”

         “Easy for you to say.”

         “Exactly.”

 

 

**________________________**

 

 

         You linger outside even after Abigail has rejoined the party.

         There are too many thoughts buzzing around your head like a swarm of noisy bees. If it were really as simple as Abigail makes it out to be, then you wouldn’t even be here. You’d be home, safe and sound, with Will. You’d be watching a movie together or making love or picking out curtains. You wouldn’t be standing alone out here in the cold. You wouldn’t be wondering where Will is tonight.

         You want to believe Abigail. You would give anything to be back where you were, in that beautiful bubble. It’s just… you’re not ready to forgive and forget. Forgive? Maybe. But forget? You can’t even walk by St. Luke’s without feeling sick at the memory of that horrible not-wedding.

         You don’t know how to trust Will again now that you know how well he can lie to you. There’s too much pride and fear in the way.

         But you miss him. So much. He’s waiting for you. He said so. It would be so hard, but maybe if…

         “There you are.”

         A puff of steam escapes your mouth when you sigh.

         You smile sheepishly at Brian. “Hi.”

         "Been looking for you." It’s hard to tell if he’s amused or exasperated to find you out here.

         "Well, you found me."

         “But did you find _him_?” he mutters.

         Something about Brian's tone catches your attention. “Find who?”

         Brian doesn't answer. Looking closer, you see that he's wobbling a bit on his feet. "Brian, are you drunk?"

         He scoffs. “Absolutely not.”

         "Liar," you tease.

         He waves you off, clearly uninterested in confirming the obvious. His larger footfall wipes out your trail of footprints when he joins you beside the wall. "What are you doing out here anyway?"

         “Fresh air."

         He gives you a knowing look. “Really."

         You bump your shoulder lightly against his arm. “What was that about with your friends?”

         “You’re cute,” he says with a shrug. “They approve.”

         That brings a small smile to your face. But he's unintentionally given you an opening to something you should talk about. Eying him, you choose your words carefully. “That guy was cute.”

         “What guy?”

         You give him an incredulous look because _come on_. “Sam? The one you were talking to?”

         His expression remains blank at first— “Seriously?" you say. "The one who was all, ‘Brian, you’re so amazing, wow”— and then Brian's face lights up in a smile.

         “Oooh. _That_ Sam. Extremely perceptive Sam."

         You snort. "Uh-huh."

         He edges closer, his gaze narrowed in on you. "Sonny, is this jealousy?”

         You give him a stern look. " _No_."

         "I think it is," he says, clearly delighted.

         “Shut up.”

         This conversation has already gone off the track you intended.

         "Hey, it's okay." He pulls you closer by your jacket collar and murmurs into your ear, "I like it."

         "So very full of yourself."

         "You know, it's a good thing I have you around just in case I ever start to feel good about myself. God forbid."

         You're smiling despite yourself. "I don't think you have any problem with feeling good about yourself."

         "See? Good thing you're here. What if someone else came along and complimented me? _Disaster_ , right?"

         Your smile disappears when you remember what you're supposed to be talking about. "You know, it's okay if... if you liked Sam."

         "Sam who?"

         You smack his chest. " _Brian_."

         "I don't want to talk about Sam any more."

         You don't want to talk any more about Sam either, but you still think you should. It’s on the tip of your tongue to tell him that he should be seeing other people. If not Sam, then at least someone (anyone) else so you aren't monopolizing him all the time.

        You should say it.

         "Brian..."

         You can't bring yourself to say it.

         Because you wouldn't mean it. You don't want Brian to like Sam. It's selfish, but at least for the moment, you like Brian where he is. With you.

         And that's kind of the problem.

         Brian leans in, but you stop him with a hand on his chest. He looks a little hurt when you push him away, but you need some space to think about what you need to say. If you let him kiss you, then your brain will shut down as it always does when Brian kisses or touches you. He can brush off your concerns and make fun of you, but you can’t just let all of the awkwardness that’s been between you slip away unacknowledged.

         You take a breath and then say, “I think I’ve been crowding your space.”

         He frowns. “Isn’t that up to me?”

         "Yes, but..."

         "Well, I say you aren't."

         Your mouth opens and closes again without anything being said. How are you supposed to counter that? You hold up your hands in a helpless gesture. “It doesn’t bother you that I basically moved into your place uninvited?”

         Brian kisses you soundly on the mouth.

         When he pulls back, he says, “Sonny, you’re fine just where you are.”

         Defeated, you just shake your head. It can’t be that simple. But you don’t know what else to say. If you both like each other right where you are, then…

         The snow falls, undisturbed. You didn’t even notice it had started again. Around you, it’s quiet. You brush some snowflakes from his hair. Brian’s eyes go soft as he looks at you. He touches your face, and his glove is smooth against your cheek.

        Your heart is pounding in your ears when he leans down and kisses you.

        Your arms go around his neck just as he wraps his arms around your waist, and he pulls you in.

        Kissing him quiets the noise in your head, and you're grateful. You're tired of worrying about everything. You know you're doing everything wrong. But for the moment, you don't care. You're caught up in a winter spell, the pristine beauty of Salem's snow lulling your brain into a contented haze.

        And then Brian slips on the ice, and you’re holding only air. He curses, and you have to laugh.

        "Moment ruined." Snickering, you help him up from the ground. "Tell me again you aren't drunk."

        "Ugh. You never saw that."

         “Oh, I saw it all right. I saw it all.”

         He cuffs you lightly on the head. “Take me home now and ravish me or else.”

         "Yes, sir."

 

 

**________________________**

 

 

        The walk back to Brian’s apartment takes you twice as long as the walk over because Brian keeps pressing you up against lampposts and walls to kiss you. The streets are empty and quiet. Tonight, they belong to you.

        You feel light, as if the only thing keeping you from floating away is Brian's hands on you.

        There's an unfamiliar undercurrent passing between you and Brian. You initially mistook it for Brian’s typical eagerness to bend you over the nearest surface, but there’s a serious look in his eyes at odds with the carefree smile he attempts once he catches you looking.

        You want to ask what’s wrong, but maybe nothing is. There’s nothing wrong with Brian pushing you up against the door to his apartment or with his fingers fumbling with the keys as he attempts to unlock the door without pausing in kissing you.

        Walking backwards, Brian pulls you inside. You expect to be herded straight to the bed, but it doesn’t happen.

        Still with the serious expression, Brian holds your gaze as he carefully unravels the scarf from your neck. Your breath catches. It’s so quiet in the apartment, just the sound of your breaths. Strangely, this feels more intimate than when he’s inside you.

        Discomfited, you drop your gaze from his to where your hands are making quick work of his belt. You feel Brian’s sigh against your cheek.

        He peels the rest of your clothes off slowly, taking time to warm your skin as it's exposed with his hands and mouth. The warm air in his apartment against your chilled skin makes you shiver. Your eyes flutter closed when Brian’s hot tongue touches your neck.

        You want to be back in that strange, intoxicated mood you felt while Brian was kissing you in the snow, but you can’t keep the anxiety from bubbling up. Nothing might be wrong, but something is different.

        Again, you have to wonder about what happens to you and Brian once this is all over. Would you stay friends? You know people who’ve stayed friends with exes, but you’ve never understood how. Would Brian even count as an ex? You skipped over all the dating and went straight into sex and cohabitation.

        And why the hell did you do that? You knew before this even started that you and Brian could never just be friends, and that was long before you had crossed the line into _this_.

        And what if Abigail is right and you’re just biding your time until you’re ready to forgive Will? Would the three of you hang out and pretend that you don’t know what it’s like to make love to both of them?

        You can’t see it.

        Alex once teasingly suggested that worrying would be the death of you. You could never lie to save your life, always seeing the punishment coming before you had even committed the sin. To your endless chagrin and their frustration, you blew your older brothers’ cover more than once while growing up.

        Years later and in a completely different situation, and Alex is still probably right.

        Once again proving that he must know you much better than you know him, Brian pauses in his ministrations to whisper into your ear, “Stop thinking.”

        You can try, especially when Brian is doing his best to be distracting. Your fingers dip below his shirt collar when he kisses you. Running your hands over his warm skin with your cold hands, you revel in his heat. It’s like there’s fire under his skin.

        Once his jacket is off, you push your hands up under his sweater and over his chest. Brian hisses through his teeth when you rub your cold thumbs over his nipples. The rest of his clothes come off rather quickly after that.

        Stop thinking? Okay. You can do that (probably). You push him toward the bed.

        Brian’s hands dig into your hair as you kiss your way down his chest. Just two nights away, and you already felt the absence of this. Someone might accuse you of having an addictive personality.

        You haven’t shaved since this morning. Turning your head, you rub your stubbly cheek over Brian’s skin. He makes a funny noise, and his fingers tighten in your hair.

        Taking his cock in hand, you run your tongue up the underside, suck lightly at the tip. Brian’s hips come off the bed. You push him back down with a pointed look.

        "Sorry, sorry," he groans.

        As soon as you’re sure he isn’t going to choke you, you take him fully into your mouth. Brian’s moans become a litany of your name. “Sonny, Sonny— _ah_ — Sonny…”

        His fingers are too tight on your hair. Letting his cock slip from your mouth, you take his hand off your head and put his fingers in your mouth instead. You’re thinking of his fingers eventually being inside you, but Brian says, “Hold on,” and takes his hand back.

        Your eyes widen when Brian leans up and sucks two of your fingers into his mouth. Dazed, you watch him fellate your fingers, your mouth gone dry.

        You look down at him, so beautiful and laid out just for you. Addictions are called addictions for a reason. They take your control away. But here is Brian, who generally likes to be on top, in control. This time, he spreads his legs open for you.

        You’re hard and ready, your head full of _want_ , but you hesitate because Brian has been so different and you’re suddenly remembering that he had a lot to drink tonight. “Brian…”

        He has no patience for your caution. “Come _on_ ,” he growls. The strange, solemn vibe you felt from him before is gone. Much to your relief, he’s just eager again.

        Smirking, you say, “So romantic.”

        Brian snorts, but then his head falls back onto the pillow when you work your fingers inside him. You lose yourself for a moment in watching him grind against your fingers. He’s a live-wire, shifting with barely contained energy and panting until he’s stretched enough and you take your fingers away.

        You crawl over him, skin brushing against skin, and his hands are everywhere, up and down your back, into your hair. He leans up to kiss your throat. With a soft groan, you rub your cheek against the crown of his head in a cat caress. You don’t understand it, but Brian’s frenetic energy is contagious. You want to be inside him already. When you kiss him, you plunge your tongue into his mouth and greedily swallow his moan. His long legs wrap around your waist, locking you in.

        His eyes are wide, fever bright, and looking into yours as you press your cock inside him. You try to maintain eye contact until the pleasure and the intensity of Brian’s gaze become too overwhelming and you have to squeeze your eyes shut.

        It hits you then like a bolt of lightning just how screwed you really are. Because you could never pretend that you haven’t done this, haven’t felt Brian like this.

        You really messed up somewhere along the way. As far as flings go, you’re doing it all wrong. Brian was supposed to be a temporary distraction. This affair wasn’t supposed to go on and on to the point where you lost the option of an easy out. It wasn’t supposed to be waking up together and sharing personal struggles and kissing in the snow. It wasn’t supposed to be Brian looking at you as he’s been doing lately. You’ve tried not to notice because…

        Because even now, when you’re fucking Brian and he’s making those gorgeous little sounds, Will is there in the back of your mind. He’s never really gone, and now you’re starting to feel guilty about it and that isn’t… _This_ isn’t…

        This isn’t what you want.

        Understanding of what you _do_ want is still up in the air and out of your grasp.

        And it doesn’t get any easier when Brian tightens around you, and he pulls you into a shared orgasm that has him crying out your name and you sobbing into his shoulder.

 

 

**________________________**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. There's a Neil side-story in the works for this verse, but I can't post it until _Knots_ is finished. 
> 
> 2\. Will returns next chapter.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will.

         It’s funny how the city can be buried under a layer of snow for the foreseeable future, and your dreams are full of sand and sun.

         When you lick your lips, there are traces of sharp spices on your tongue, tastes you haven’t experienced in a long time. Familiar sounds, tastes, and sensations… In sleep, you’re home again.

         Dubai is the home you never wanted and that never wanted you. Still, she caught you during a vulnerable, formative period; and now you’re inside each other, caught together in a coil made of both love and hate.

         Right now, within the safety net of sleep, it’s love. Even amidst the misery and the fear, there were always silver linings in the cracks. It’s easier to access them from here than it is when you’re awake and it’s impossible to separate the personal from the political.

         One of those silver linings was the warm, lulling breeze that sometimes blew through the sheer curtains of your bedroom window. Lying on your bed in your sweltering room, sweat slowly dripping down your face, you could close your eyes and feel the breeze like a cool caress over your body.

         You can feel it now because you’re there again, lying on your old bed in the house you shared with your family the last time you all lived together. In reality, your brothers are scattered to the four winds. But if you commit to the illogic of the dreamscape, then you can believe that what you’re hearing is your brothers horsing around down in the street with the neighborhood boys.

         The beauty of lucid dreaming lies in the simplicity of it: you want to be back there, and so you are. And everything… _everyone_ is just as you left them.

         As you wake up, slowly, reluctantly, Dubai’s heat lingers in your mouth, your head, your heart.

         Strangely, though, the heat seems to remain even after the dream slips away. You realize why after a confused moment.

         Brian is tucked up against your back, his legs entwined with yours. He’s wrapped snugly around you, his hold too tight to be comfortable. Last night, you thought there must be fire under his skin. This morning, his body is still warm enough to burn you.

          (You wish you could carry the heat around with you as he does. After Dubai, after Texas, Salem is just too cold. You’re always too cold here.)

         A rush of sudden homesickness grips your heart. It’s not even for Dubai. You ran from her the second you could as if there were fire under your feet and _absolutely anywhere else_ was a cool pond. It’s elusive, what you’re missing, but you feel the loss of it all the same.

         Just as you’re about to gently disentangle yourself, you freeze at the touch of Brian’s lips on the back of your neck. His hum, a sleepy, contented noise right there at the base of your neck, reverberates through your skin like a living echo.

         You suck in a shaky breath.

         You remember now, falling asleep like this, with Brian pressed up against you. Your bodies were limp, languid. You told yourself it was happening because the room was so cold and Brian was so warm. Even then, you were thinking of Dubai and how the nights never got as cold as the ones in Salem.

          (You don’t know why you were expecting different, but it’s not the same, not at all. No matter how warm you are in Brian’s bed, Salem is not Dubai. You’re hundreds of miles away from the real thing.

         And you’re never going back.)

         The pressure of Brian’s mouth becomes more insistent, his tongue and teeth scraping along the nape of your neck.

         It takes you a moment to find your voice. “Brian…” you say tentatively. Your intention is to put on the breaks. Not for the first time, Brian misunderstands you. Granted, you’re probably sending a mixed message by moaning at a sharp tug from his teeth on your ear.

         You can tell from a light pull on your hair that he wants you to turn into a kiss. You don’t— your gaze remains stubbornly trained on where your fingers grip the sheets— but you’re shivering in his arms despite yourself.

         It would be easier to stop if it didn’t feel so good. That’s kind of the problem. Brian makes you _want_. Probably because _he_ wants so passionately. Sometimes, as it does now when his thigh slips between yours and there’s a whimper at the back of your throat, this thing with him feels inevitable, as if it were always going to happen between you one way or another.

         You don’t really believe that, but it’s easy to believe with arousal clouding your head.

         When he begins slowly and purposefully rocking against you, it takes everything in you not to grind down on his thigh or back against him. You can feel him, hard and ready, behind you and you want to give in, can already feel it happening, but… 

          _Okay_ , you tell yourself, _that’s enough._

         With a frustrated sigh, you’re pushing at his grip and wiggling away until Brian takes a hint and releases you. The floor is cold under your feet, the air a cold contrast to the warmth of the bed sheets.

         Yawning sleepily, Brian props himself up on an elbow. Blurry-eyed, he watches you escape the bed. “You all right?” He sounds as breathless as you feel.

         You wish you could sound less flustered. “I’m fine,” you say, not looking at him. “I’m going to take a shower.”

         The way he’s staring suggests that you didn’t exactly manage to come off as completely natural when you said that completely natural thing. Or maybe he’s staring because of the way you’re slowly backing away from him as if he’s a cobra you just found in your bed.

          “Okay… Can I—?”

         You close the bathroom door on his offer to join you, your heart racing in your chest as you lean back against the hard wood.

         Your reflection in the bathroom mirror looks so ridiculously frazzled that you can’t help but feel embarrassed for yourself. Groaning into your hands, you let your head fall back with a hard thump against the door.

         There was no good reason you had to run out of the room like a complete freak. It’s just that… if you’d stayed in the bed, then you and Brian would have had sex. Before that happens again, you just need some space to think. You _cannot think_ when Brian is determined to seduce you.

         It feels as if you haven’t had a coherent thought in _weeks_. Maybe you haven’t. Maybe that’s why everyone has been treating you as if you’ve lost your mind or as if you’ve been replaced by a pod person.

         When you turn on the faucet, only ice-cold water pumps out from the frozen pipes. You don’t bother to adjust the heat before you jump in. Maybe it’s not your brightest idea— oh, sweet Jesus, it’s _cold_ — but a cold shower is just what you need right now to chase off the memory of Brian’s body against yours.

         Here's the thing: the problem isn’t even that you clearly made a mistake last night or that you let things get out of hand. The real problem is that you let it happen _repeatedly._

         When it should have been about reestablishing boundaries, last night was soft hands trailing over your back. It was Brian’s lips and tongue on your wrist, traveling down your arm, his mouthing the delicate skin in the crook of your elbow. It was his contented sigh when he pressed inside you. It was the way your gaze lingered too long on the places where your bodies touched. Too gentle, too intense.

         Afterwards, you didn’t push him away or say “we need to talk” or anything like that. You could have told yourself that you never meant to, that it just kind of happened. But the words wouldn’t have really meant anything when you didn't even _stop._ You kept touching him. You kept kissing him.

         You give yourself an extra splash in the face because you’re overreacting. You know you are. Look at Brian. He isn’t hiding in the bathroom. He gave no sign that last night freaked him out as much as it did you.

         Then again, you can’t help but think… why should he be upset? Isn’t this what he wants? Every time you’ve tried to initiate some distance— starting with your first meeting all the way down to this morning— he’s resisted you. And you’ve let him.

         It suddenly occurs to you that you have no idea what Brian wants from all this. That’s… not good.

         Maybe this whole thing with Brian has been too easy all along. Since you lost Will, Brian has been the current, the instigator, and you’ve let him pull you whichever way so long as you didn’t have to be the one making the decisions. That way, it wouldn’t be your fault.

         You never really considered how much stock you put in the assumption that what Brian wanted matched what you wanted. For all you know, it doesn’t. Because if what you both want is a casual fling, then you’ve both been doing it all wrong.

         Unfortunately, you feel far from blameless in this situation. And, consciously or not, Brian has been instigating a shift.

         You aren’t ready for another shift.

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         When you finally emerge from the bathroom, Brian is sitting on the edge of the bed. He's glaring down at his ringing phone as if it’s offended him. You don't know when any of his ringtones became familiar to you, but this one is unfamiliar.

          (Neil’s ringtone is Natalia Kills’s “Hot Mess” for some reason, and yours is Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” because your music taste never ceases to amuse and Brian can be kind of an asshole when he wants to be).

          “You gonna answer that?”

         A tap of the ignore button and the phone goes into the top drawer of his nightstand. “It’s nothing,” he says.

          “Okay,” you say because you don’t know what else to say.

         When Brian finally looks at you, he does a funny kind of double-take at the load in your arms. “What are you doing?”

         You clutch your toiletries to your chest. There’s a tad of unwarranted defensiveness in your tone when you say, “I’m going to take some of this stuff back to my place.”

         Brian stares at your full arms, and something unreadable passes over his face. “Oh.”

          “Is that…?” You stop yourself, because you were about to ask if it was all right. There’s no reason to ask that because of course it is. It’s your stuff, and it belongs in your apartment.

         There’s a sardonic twist to his mouth when Brian hangs his head and runs a hand over his face. “You…”

          “What?” You definitely sound defensive now.

         Without answering, he’s suddenly up and moving toward the bathroom. He’s still naked, and there are marks along his body leftover from the night before. Your handiwork. You hear him snort when you avert your eyes.

          “I hope you didn’t use all the hot water,” he says, sounding genuinely pissed off at the prospect.

          “I didn’t…”

         The door slams behind him, and you’re left feeling ridiculous standing there in the middle of the room with your shampoo and shaving cream.

         Maybe you slam the door a little harder than necessary on your way out, too.

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         Despite how it feels, it really hasn’t been that long.

         Still, when you push open the door, you can’t help but feel as if your apartment has the air of a sad, abandoned place.

         With a deep sigh, you go about putting your things away. It only takes a few minutes. There really wasn’t as much stuff as you thought.

         With that done, you’re left with nothing to do but slump, defeated, onto the edge of your bed. Being back here still feels off, as if you could turn your head quick enough and catch Will cooking in the kitchen or shaving at the bathroom sink. Somehow, your apartment manages to feel both too large and too claustrophobic at the same time.

         But what choice do you have? You’re more convinced than ever that you need to reduce the amount of time you’re spending at Brian’s apartment, and you don’t want to impose any more on Uncle Victor and Aunt Maggie.

         There are two voicemails waiting for you from your mother. It’s been a while since you’ve spoken. When you took up with Brian, you basically dived down the rabbit hole. She’ll want to know how you’re doing, if you’re still doing “better.”

         You erase the voicemails.

         You wouldn’t know what to tell her anyway.

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         Going to work seems like a better alternative than sitting alone in your apartment. With all your confusion, the busy work should at least offer a temporary refuge from your thoughts.

         At least, that was the theory.

         One of the things you most looked forward to about owning a café was the opportunity to build ties within the community. Now, you see the fallacy in building a place where anyone can find you, any time.

          “What are you doing here, Gabi?”

         The words came out harsher than you intended. You can tell Gabi felt every ounce of venom you just spat at her by the way her face tightens and her tone becomes clipped.

          “I’m looking for Nick, Sonny.”

          “Why do you think Nick would be here?”

          “Well, this is the coffee house. You know, people hang out here. If he asked you for a cup of coffee, would you kick him out?”

         You find it strange that either of them would even consider putting you in that position. Shouldn’t it go without saying that the trio that ruined your hopes and dreams should get their coffee elsewhere?

          “Of course not. But—”

          “But what? You know, Nick and me and Will are really trying to make this work. Are you above that? Is it really too much to ask you to _try?_ ”

         She makes it sound as if you’re being unreasonable, like a stubborn child pouting at the dinner table and ruining everyone else’s dessert. You can’t raise your voice in front of your customers, but it’s a near thing. “What happens between me and Will is none of your damn business.”

          “Look, I know you don’t like me. And I really don’t blame you for being angry with me.”

         It’s funny, but you didn’t even realize that you were angry with Gabi until right this moment.

          “Gee. That’s big of you, Gabi.”

         You’re staring without meaning to at her baby bump. She's big as a house even though her delivery date is still a ways off. Seeing her makes the whole thing feel more real. There’s no denying that one day, very soon, that baby is going to come out, and everything is going to change. Again. You have to wonder what Will is thinking about this.

          “We both care about Will,” she says.

         Does she? T said Gabi and Nick were going to eat Will alive. You’ve seen how far Gabi is willing to go in order to get what she wants, what she was willing to do to Melanie when she got in her way. They were supposed to be friends, too.

          “You have a funny way of showing it,” you tell her. “I’m not gonna stand here and watch you hurt him again.”

         Defending Will comes naturally to you. It’s where you feel strongest. But something about Gabi’s expression warns you that you’re not going to like what she says next.

         You’re already bracing yourself when she says, “Are you kidding me, Sonny? You’ve already hurt Will more than I ever could.”

         There it is again. Abigail was kinder when she phrased it, but it’s still the same indictment. You abandoned Will. That’s how everyone sees it.

         And you are twice as defensive hearing it from Gabi. “You’re really gonna judge _me?_ ”

          “I was just saying—”

          “Don’t talk to me about hurting people. I know exactly who you are and what you’ve done. And if Will knew—”

         Maybe you went too far and hit Gabi where it hurts, because she throws down her ace in the hole, her cruelest weapon. “What Will knows is that I’m carrying his baby, okay? _Our_ little girl.”

         Theirs. Not yours. It’s the same thought you’ve had every day since that morning in the church. You still aren’t ready to hear it from anybody else, let alone from _her._

          “And that is something that is gonna keep us together for life. Something that you and Will will never have.”

         It’s a bucket of ice water over your heart and a slap in the face all in one.

         There’s a reason you were avoiding having this confrontation. No matter what you said, you were always going to lose. And it’s because Gabi has the upper hand on you. She and Will are bound together by blood now. Blood always wins out. You’re a Kiriakis. You should know.

         You aren't even in the equation anymore.

         So why are you still here fighting with Gabi?

         Nick conveniently chooses this moment to show his face. For the first time ever, you’re actually relieved to see him.

          “What’s going on?” he asks.

          “Nothing,” she says. Gabi glares triumphantly at you. You imagine she feels really proud of herself. She didn’t even need to be saved from you, but her knight still showed up to do the honors. “Let’s go home.”

         Nick looks between you, obviously curious, but he follows Gabi’s lead. They at least do you the favor of leaving before you can throw them out and prove Gabi right by acting petty.

         Instead, you bite your tongue, and Gabi gets to have the last word. You’re left with frustration and anger surging through your shaking hands.

         You didn't even raise your voice, but people are staring again.

         Jackie touches your arm. “Sonny, I can get these customers. If you want to… I think there’s some inventory…”

          “Yeah… okay. Okay.” Her kindness means you get to retreat to the back office to lick your wounds. No one would blame you if you stayed back there for a long time.

         You make a mental note to talk to Chad about hiring on some more people so you won’t have to be there every day.

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         Some hours later, you're on a prearranged lunch date with Brian.

         You’re still too preoccupied with thinking about Gabi and what she said to be anything but terrible company. You should have just cancelled. In all honesty, you just forgot. Then, Brian showed up, and now here you are, strolling through Horton Town Square with an untouched sandwich crushed in your hand.

         Brian’s in a similar mood. You didn’t exactly have a fight, but you get the sense that he’s mad at you.

         You wonder if his mood has something to do with his being hung-over from the night before, but your question just earns you a withering look.

          “I wasn’t drunk, Sonny.”

         You could argue that point, but you aren’t in the mood. “Fine.”

          “And neither were you.”

         Something about his tone makes your hackles rise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

         Brian just snorts.

         You don’t know what his problem is, but you’re in no place to deal with this today. You don’t know why you’re pretending that you should be spending time together right now when it’s clearly not what either of you want to be doing.

         When his phone starts ringing for the umpteenth time, and he makes no move to answer it, you finally give voice to the smallest of your frustrations:

          “Will you just answer that? Who keeps calling you anyway?”

         He looks at you as if he wasn’t expecting you to call him on this clearly shady behavior and he’s kind of ticked that you actually did. You expect him to snap at you, maybe something along the lines of “none of your business.”

         What he actually says is, “My mother.”

          “Oh. Well, why don’t you answer?”

          “Because I don’t want to talk to her.” He says it as if you’re slow.

         Fed up with his attitude, you’re about to cut the date short when something catches your eye in a store window and distracts you entirely.

         It’s a bassinet. A beautiful, pristine white bassinet. The kind you imagine happy, affluent couples putting happy, affluent babies in. Picture perfect.

         Abigail said that you were going to forgive Will. In her mind, you’re just on sabbatical from your relationship with Will until you can get over yourself. Maybe she’s right. You miss Will. You can admit that much to yourself. Still, it isn’t so simple, is it? This situation would be complicated even if there wasn’t a baby involved.

         But there is.

         Abigail can judge you all she wants, but you’re the one who would have to commit to a life on the sidelines of Will, Gabi, and baby makes three. Where would you fit into that picture?

         You can’t stand Gabi. She can’t stand you. The logical part of your brain knows that it’s not the baby’s fault how it came into the world. But since when can human beings be counted on to always be rational? What if you ended up resenting Will’s child? You would hate to be that person. But what if…?

         Brian appears at your shoulder. “What are you looking at?”

         You’re watching his reflection in the glass, so you see Brian scowl when he sees the bassinet. “Oh.”

         You try to envision Brian as a father, and the image doesn’t come. You’ve never discussed children before, but his reaction fits your expectations of him. Not that you ever realized you had any expectations.

         The question flies out of your mouth before you can think about it: “Do you want to have kids someday?”

         You don’t know what you were expecting, but his furious reaction to your question startles you. “Are you being serious right now?” he snaps. “Really, Sonny?”

         Baffled, you can only stare at him. He’s really angry. What did you say?

         He’s already walking away from you when he abruptly stops and yells back, “You can’t have it both ways.”

         Stunned, you watch him walk away.

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         You’re a stress cleaner. Always have been. When things get overwhelming, you like to throw yourself into chores. Clean, simple purpose clears your head, and you don’t have to think about “You can’t have it both ways” or “I’m not giving up on us.”

         Lucky you, your apartment has weeks worth of dust available to you. The lulling roar of the vacuum cleaner happily disrupts your quiet apartment. You determinedly attack every corner.

         It just so happens that, while you’re pushing the vacuum under the bed, a familiar shade of blue pops out at you. There’s already a knot in your stomach before you even bend over to pick it up, _“I’m not giving up on us”_ already back to the forefront of your mind.

         It’s Will’s shirt. One of his favorites. He must have left it behind when he packed up his stuff. You always loved this shirt on him.

         Such a simple thing… it probably shouldn’t still hurt like this.

         You should give the shirt back. Or throw it away. This isn’t what you need right now.

         You go so far as to pull over the wastebasket. But that’s as far as you get, because your fingers don’t seem to want to let go.

         Before you can talk yourself out of it, you pull out your phone. Your text is short and to the point:

          _I have something of yours._

         Will doesn’t make you wait long for a response.

          _Common Grounds tonight? 6 o’clock?_

         You worry your bottom lip. It takes you a few minutes to work up the nerve.

          _All right._

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         Folded neatly, Will’s shirt waits on the counter top.

         There are still hours to go until 6 o’clock. Try as you might to resist, your gaze keeps going straight back to the clock. You don’t even know if you’re excited or dreading Will’s arrival. Either way, this is probably a bad idea.

         Still, once 6 o’ clock, then 6:30, and 7 all roll around and there’s no Will, you can’t help feeling disappointed. There’s no message from him on your phone— you’ve checked. You don’t want to think that something bad happened to keep him from coming, but the alternative is that Will just chose not to come. You wouldn’t blame him, though you don’t really believe he would stand you up.

         Which is why you’re scrubbing at the counters for all you’re worth, caught up in your epic battle with coffee stains because it’s better than worrying. Common Grounds has way more opportunities for stress cleaning than your tiny apartment.

         You’re so busy trying _not_ to think that you aren’t initially paying much attention to Lucas and Kate, who are having an intense conversation at one of the tables. It’s only when you happen to overhear Gabi’s name that your ears perk up.

          “Is Gabi in labor?”

         Labor? That can’t be right…

          “I don’t know,” Lucas says, frowning down at his phone. “Sami’s not sure. She’s having contractions.”

         The rag falls from your hand.

         Kate says exactly what you’re thinking. “It’s way too soon for the baby.”

         You were right to worry. Will had to stand you up because the baby is in trouble. Will’s baby. Will…

          “I know it is,” Lucas says. He looks worried, too. “That’s why I have to get to the hospital.”

          “I’m going with you.”

         The door hasn’t even fully closed behind them yet, and you’re already hurriedly fumbling with your apron strings. You grab Jackie as she’s walking passed. “Can you close up for me?”

         She looks taken aback by your intensity, but she says, “Sure.”

         The word is barely out of her mouth before you’re out the door.

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         On the way to the hospital, you keep replaying your last conversation with Gabi.

         You don’t know what’s wrong with Gabi, but it’s hard not to feel guilty. Just an hour ago, you were dwelling on your negative feelings about her. Maybe you weren’t specifically wishing ill on her, but you weren’t exactly sending her positive vibes either.

          In the face of potential tragedy, you feel fairly ashamed of yourself. But mainly you’re just worried for Will.

         You find them all hovering in the hospital lobby. Lucas, Kate, and Rafe are there with Will. They all look terrified.

         You clear your throat.

         There’s a moment when you feel the weight of their collective stares, when you think someone is going to ask what you’re doing there, and you’ll have to defend yourself for intruding on a very personal situation even though you’re not Will’s boyfriend, or related to anyone, or anything to them really.

         And then Will’s expression crumbles, and he’s throwing himself into your arms, and you’re holding him, and no one is asking anything.

         His arms are tight around your neck. You clutch him to you, an arm around his waist and a hand holding his head against your shoulder. You’re murmuring things into his hair, “I’ve got you. You’re okay. I’ve got you…”

          “Sonny, the baby…”

          “… is fine. Everything is going to be fine.”

         You don’t actually know if everything is going to be fine. You don’t know what’s wrong with Gabi or the baby. But you would say anything to get the pain out of Will’s voice.

         You eye Will’s family over his shoulder. Their relieved expressions make you wonder how bad Will was before you got there. It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         Later, after you’ve led Will away from the group supposedly to get a cup of coffee but really just to give him some room to breathe, he says, “I can’t believe you came over here.”

         Your smile is self-conscious. “I heard your dad telling Kate what was going on and… We’re still friends. I just had to be here.”

         You are still friends, you realize. Now, standing here across from him, it’s hard to believe that you ever worried that you couldn’t still be there for him just because you broke up. When something big like this happens… How could you stay away?

         When Will doesn’t say anything, you nervously add, “Unless I’m in the way. I can go.”

          “No.” More sure, “ _No._ I want you to stay.” He drops his gaze. “I really do.”

          You try not to look so obviously relieved. “Okay.” You touch his shoulder. “I can’t imagine how hard this is on you.”

          “You know, she was just this idea. She was just this problem. And then I saw the sonogram, and she was, like, trying to suck her little thumb.”

         You can’t help smiling at the wonder in his voice.

          “I put my hand on Gabi’s stomach, and I felt her kick. It was like she was saying, ‘Hey! There you are. I’ve been waiting for you.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s my kid. You know, I have a daughter. And I started thinking about all the stuff we could do together. I could take her camping in the summer. We could go ice skating in the winter.”

          The picture he’s painting for you is exactly the one you’ve been avoiding thinking about. Listening to him, you can easily imagine Will with his daughter, who in your mind is beautiful and golden just like her father. For the first time, the mental image doesn’t hurt.

         You don’t know who Will was kidding. He never could have given up this baby. Not for you. Not for anyone. It’s clear that he’s in love.

         Being here, seeing this… there so many complicated feelings soaring around your head. You can’t even zero in on one without risking unthreading entirely.

         Somehow, you manage to keep your voice steady when you say, “Will? You kind of suck at ice skating.”

         He manages a self-deprecating smile. “Yeah. I was gonna try to get better though. I can’t fall if she’s holding my hand.” His voice wobbles. “I really hope I get to hold her hand.”

         Seeing him start to crumble again snaps you out of your temporary backslide into self-pity. You touch his hand. “Will, everything is going to be okay.”

         He searches your face, probably gauging your sincerity, so you try to put your conviction where he can see it. You must have failed, because Will’s eyes become misty.

         Uh-oh. “What is it?”

         To your surprise and relief, Will smiles through his tears. “Nothing. It’s just really nice to see your face.” His fingers curl around yours.

         You have to swallow around the lump in your throat.

          “It’s really nice to see your face, too.”

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         Your vigil in the hospital lasts through most of the night.

         Will doesn’t handle the wait well. Anxiety has him pacing around the room, always in orbit around you. You want to reach out and touch just to make him stop, but his family is watching you. You can’t tell if they want you to or not.

         It’s one of the longest nights of your life. After so long without news, you start to consider what you’re going to say to Will if the baby doesn’t make it. It’s a dim prospect. After everything, it’s possible that Will, undoubtedly distraught, won’t want to hear anything from you at all. You could tell him that you’re sorry, but why should he believe you?

         You keep all of your anxiety locked down tight under lock and key with the full understanding that this is not about you, but not everyone manages to do the same. There’s a lot of stress-related behavior that you’re witness to throughout the night.

         Everyone seems intent on blaming Sami for this, Will included. Apparently, she and Gabi argued at the Brady Pub, and that’s what led to Gabi’s early labor pains and the rush to the hospital.

         Will can barely stand to look at her. All of their issues are on full display for the whole room to see. He orders her out of the hospital multiple times, but she stubbornly stands her ground, determined to be there for him whether he likes it or not.

         You hold your tongue because you have no idea if Sami is to blame or not; though, it strikes you as unlikely that someone cold enough to have their own best friend kidnapped just to get them out of the way would be so delicate as to collapse just from a few harsh words from Sami. If that’s all it takes, then you’re lucky she didn’t collapse after talking to you. This thought has you feeling fairly sympathetic toward Will’s mother. But you aren’t here for Sami.

         After a while, Will finally exhausts himself. He slides down the wall to the floor beside your chair. He looks defeated. It hurts to see him like that. Without thinking, you abandon your chair to join him on the floor. Your shoulders brush.

         His lip trembles. “Tell me again.”

         He’s whispering, so you lower your voice to match his. This conversation obviously isn’t for anyone else. “Tell you what?”

          “That it’s going to okay.”

         You imagine everyone can hear the sound of your heart breaking. Oh, Will. Forgetting your earlier trepidation, you put your arm around his shoulders. When he leans his head on your shoulder, you murmur into his ear, “It’s going to be okay, Will.”

          “Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

         You realize with a jolt of surprise that he might actually believe you. Because you would never lie to him. Could he still have that much faith in you?

         Suddenly, there’s a weight on your chest and you’re pulling him closer so you can lay your head against his. It could be your imagination, but Will seems to breathe a little easier. It’s amazing that just an hour earlier and this kind of closeness between you wouldn’t have been possible.

         It seems to take forever for Maxine to come out and say that Gabi and the baby are all right.

         Dehydration. All the blaming and snarling at Sami, and it was just dehydration all along.

         Will hugs you again with a half-relieved, half-hysterical laugh. Sami looks just as relieved, and you don’t blame her. You’re feeling pretty relieved yourself to know that it wasn’t your bad vibes that put Gabi in here.

          “You were right,” Will says.

         Thank God. “Of course I was,” you joke. “It’s _me_.”

         You can feel Will smile against your shoulder. You were aiming for glib, but there’s no denying that the thought of _what-if-you-weren’t_ has you gripping him tighter. You send a grateful _thank you_ up to the universe.

         Sami watches you hold Will. When your eyes meet, she sends you a watery, grateful smile. In this moment, you think you understand each other. To you, she isn’t the town screw-up, just a frightened and protective mother. Neither of you are technically supposed to be here— Kate and Rafe haven’t stopped giving her the stink eye— but you’re both still here because you care about Will. The only difference right now is that Will is letting you hold him.

         It’s a small, private moment between you and Sami when you return her smile over Will’s shoulder.

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         You take Will home.

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         Sometime when you weren’t looking, Will moved into the Salem U dorms.

         The walk up the staircase to his room inspires conflicting feelings in you. Even when you were still planning on moving in together, this is where you privately suspected Will should be all along. You never told him, but you worried that moving in together would somehow take away from his college experience and make him grow old at the peak of his youth.

          (Turns out that was going to happen regardless.)

         Your worries didn’t stop you from giving him the key, though. Obviously, you wanted him to move in with you more than you worried for his overall well-being.

         You can be selfish, too.

         Will drops his keys onto the desk and flings his jacket without looking to see where it lands. He tiredly rubs his eyes. Poor guy has to be exhausted. You place his discarded jacket over the back of his desk chair.

         Will isn’t looking at you when he asks, “Brian isn’t going to mind you being here?”

         Christ. He isn’t looking, so he doesn’t see you flinch. “It’s fine.” There’s nothing else to say about it. Not now anyway. You don’t want to open that door. You’re not here to talk about Brian.

         You say his name softly. That catches his attention, and he watches you with wide eyes as you settle on the edge of his bed. “Come here,” you say.

         When he shuffles closer, you take his hand and pull him down so he’s sitting beside you. You put your arm around his shoulders, tugging him closer until he lays his head on your shoulder. It’s a mirror of your position at the hospital, except that the bed is much more comfortable than a cold hospital floor.

         It’s been such a long night. You can hear all the pent up stress and anxiety release in his sigh when he slumps against you.

         Will’s dorm room is quiet and still around you. Before this year, you chose mountains over classrooms, so you never really had the dorm experience yourself. You imagined loud noise reverberating through the walls well into the night.

         And then you remember that it’s 4:30 in the morning. Even the most ardent frat boys are probably sleeping.

         Will reaches up to clutch the hand you’ve got around his shoulder. The familiarity almost gets you. You’ve sat together like this a million times before and under much better circumstances.

         You have to purposely suppress the nostalgia before it can rear its head. Instead, you will your mind to go blank. It doesn’t matter that the boundaries are blurred here. You just want to help. Being here seems to help.

         You’ve felt so lost lately. For the first time in a long time, you know exactly where you’re supposed to be, and it’s right here taking care of Will.

         Will’s voice is strained when he breaks the silence and says, “Sonny, I thought… When I got the call, I thought that—”

         You shush him. You know what he thought. “Gabi and the baby are all right, remember? You’re all right.”

         He nods a little desperately.

          “Can I get you anything?” you ask.

          “No. Just talk to me.”

          “About?”

          “Anything. Tell me about your day.”

          “Well, most of it was spent at the hospital…”

          “Before that. Tell me about before.”

         You search your mind, but there really isn’t any part of your day that you want to share. Will doesn’t want to hear about your drama with Brian. So, you make up a story about Chad, some make-believe customers from Japan, and a cultural misunderstanding. You talk and talk until Will finally yawns.

          “Am I boring you?” you tease.

          “No. Just tired.”

          “You want to lie down?”

          “Yeah.”

         You’re about to pull your arm back when Will tightens his grip on your hand, effectively locking you in place. When he leans back on the bed, you’re pulled down with him with Will’s head cushioned by your arm. You pull your arm back just enough so that you’re able to roll onto your side and face him. He smiles sleepily at you.

         Your heart is beating rapidly when you say, “My arm is not a pillow.”

          “Your arm is the best pillow,” he says, causing you to snort. More serious, he asks, “Stay?”

         It’s only with a slight hesitation that you say, “Okay.” As if you could say no when he’s looking at you like that. “You can go to sleep if you want.”

         Will does close his eyes, but you can still see signs of tension on his face. You reach out slowly, unsure but still wanting to soothe out the worry, and gently stroke your fingers over his eyelids. He twitches under your hand, and you freeze.

         But when Will doesn’t move away or even open his eyes, you move your fingers down his cheek and trace the lines around his mouth. His bottom lip falls open at your touch.

          _The boundaries are blurred here,_ you remind yourself.

         Emboldened, you let your fingers roam further. You touch his hair, softly trailing your fingers through the strands. Will hums contentedly under your touch. You think he looks relaxed for the first time since you found him at the hospital. The sight sends warmth through your chest.

         You feel light, dizzy. Once you’ve started, you can’t seem to stop touching. Will lets you run your hands over his face, down his neck, and over his shoulders without comment. The only sound between you comes from his shallow breaths. Maybe he senses that speaking now would pierce the fragile bubble you’ve woven. This does feel like an _other_ space meant just for the two of you.

         Which is why you don’t say anything either when he curls around you, his arm tight across your chest. He must feel your heart beating wildly against your ribs, but he doesn’t call you on it.

         He’s so close that his eyelashes graze yours when he leans forward. Your heart is in your throat as you let your eyes slide shut. His lips brush against yours. Soft and sweet, like a butterfly kiss. It makes you ache. This is what he does to you. He brings clichés to life and makes the rest of the world fade away.

         But you have to cup his face and say, firmly if regretfully, “No, Will.”

         You feel his disappointed sigh on your lips. It echoes your own.

          “Sonny…”

         When you open your eyes, the look on his face makes your breath catch. The truth is that no one has ever looked at you as Will looks at you— as if you’re everything. Being on the receiving end of that look is the most wonderful, terrifying thing in the world.

         Will scoots down so he can bury his face in your neck. “I love you,” he whispers.

         You’re glad he can’t see the pain on your face. Tortured, you say, “Will…”

         Will takes your hand from where you’re clutching the bedspread between you. He kisses your knuckles. “I’m going to keep telling you so you don’t forget.”

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         You don’t leave immediately; rather, you wait until his breathing has evened out in sleep before you carefully reclaim your arm from under his neck.

         Will’s blue shirt is still in your bag. You place it, still carefully folded, on his desk for him to find once he wakes up.

         You’re creeping out of Will’s dorm room like a guilty lover when he says it.

         Startled, you turn with your hand still on the doorknob. The soft light through the window has caught him just right to make him look ethereal lying there, pale skin on pale sheets, his blue eyes shining at you through the gray half-dark.

         You either woke him or else he was never really asleep. He claims the pillow you were using, wraps his arms around it and pulls it under his cheek.

         There’s no vindictiveness that you can sense when he says it, only a simple earnestness that you could never blame him for.

         Still, you make him repeat it. “What did you say?”

          “Brian isn’t who you think he is.”

         Yeah, that’s what you thought he said.

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         In retrospect, you shouldn’t have asked him to elaborate.

         But you did.

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         By the time you actually leave Will’s dorm, you’re squinting against delicate morning light.

         With the adrenaline having worn off, you’re left feeling groggy and vaguely ill from stress and lack of sleep. There isn’t much thought behind it when your feet take you back to Common Grounds. It is your home away from home, the place you spend most of your time.

         You end up curled up in one of the booths. Sleep doesn’t come, not that you really expected it to.

         You’re still there in the booth when Brian eventually comes to collect you. You don’t look up at the sound of the bell tinkling over the door, just when he hovers over the booth and there’s really no further excuse for ignoring him.

         He looks tired, too. Other than that, it’s hard to read him. You stare at each other, and Will’s words echo through your head.

          _“Brian isn’t who you think he is.”_

         Brian doesn’t have to say what he’s thinking because there are something like six unanswered text messages on your phone from him sent over the course of the night asking where you were.

         After a moment, you stand with a sigh.

         Brian holds the door open for you, his expression still blank. You still haven’t spoken.

         The silence is strained on the walk back to his apartment. You drag your feet until Brian gets frustrated with you and finally just goes ahead at a faster pace. A rebellious voice in your head suggests just turning around and going back to your own apartment. No explanation required. You don’t, but it’s tempting.

         By the time you get back to the apartment, you see that Brian has left the door open for you.

         In the kitchen, Brian is chopping vegetables with laser-focused intensity. His usual breakfast consists of a bunch of vegetables juiced together in the blender. The only time you’ve ever seen him cook anything unhealthy was when he was cooking something for you.

         “Are you hungry?” he asks without looking up.

         “No.”

         “Where were you?” he asks evenly. The carrots get pushed to the side to make way for the cucumber. You watch him quickly hash out a row of perfectly symmetrical slices.

         “With Will.”

         You see him absorb that. His jaw clenches. You note that he doesn’t look surprised.

         “At the hospital,” you add.

         He just stares at you, so you spell it out more clearly. “I was at the hospital with Will.”

         You jump in alarm when Brian abruptly slams the knife down onto the cutting board.

         “I don’t have to be anywhere for six hours.” His voice is still eerily calm despite the violent gesture. “I’m going back to bed.”

         Abandoning the vegetables, he walks right passed you and heads for the bed. He sits on the edge and starts taking off his boots. He can’t be serious, but he sure looks determined to at least act as if he’s returning to bed.

         Well, he isn’t going to ignore you that easily. You follow him to the edge of the bed, hovering in front of him. “Aren’t you going to ask me why we were at the hospital?”

         He gives you an ironic look. “No.”

         “No?” Your hands clench at your sides. “You were his friend. You don’t care?”

         Brian’s fuse must be shorter than he wants you to think, because he’s only just sat down but he throws his boot onto the floor and stands again. You’re too stubborn to move back even though you have to crane your head back to still look him in the eye.

         His eyes are livid when he smirks at you. _“No.”_

         “How can you say that?” you demand, appalled. You’ve never seen him like this before. Of course, you’ve never really fought before.

         “How can I…?” He laughs incredulously. “Sonny, if Will was the one who was hurt, then you wouldn’t even be here. So I’m guessing it’s the baby mama drama. Yes? Thought so. And guess what? _I don’t care_ about that or whatever else he’s using to try to lure you back in.”

         He gets in your face and says, “You wanna know what I do care about?”

         Your only response is a glare.

         “While I was here, worrying about you, you were with Will? Ignoring my texts?”

         You could reassure him that it’s not what he thinks, whether it is or isn’t, but you’re so angry you’re seeing red. So you say, _“Yes.”_

         “Fuck you, Sonny Kiriakis.” And then he’s pulling you into a brutal kiss.

         You shove him back. “No, fuck _you_ —”

         He cuts you off with another kiss. This time, you kiss him back. The kiss is angry, full of teeth and spit, and you’re rudely pulling at the buttons of each other’s coats. Your lust and fury are so intertwined that there’s no clear distinction.

         If you were a more violent person, you might have just hit him. You hit T because that was the only way to make him understand that you weren’t going to take his abuse lying down. But that’s not you. Banked anger, emotional shut down, and sharp verbal jabs are how you fight back. Now, you know Brian can match you in that. He can match you in this, too.

         For you, it’s been a long 24-hour stretch with not enough sleep and too much stress. Stress about Brian, stress about Will. You’ve officially been pushed passed your endurance threshold. All your frustrations with him boil over, and you’re pushing Brian back onto the edge of the bed so you can straddle his lap.

         Brian tugs your shirt over your head, and it’s barely off before he’s kissing you again. You pull back just far enough to get his shirt off, too, barely breaking the kiss. It’s hard to get his belt off while you’re still sitting on his lap, but you manage.

         Gripping your hips, he rolls his erection up against you. You moan when he buries his face in your neck and growls, “I’m going to fuck you so hard.”

          _No,_ you think, though your whole body is singing as you grind down against him. How can you be so angry and still want him this much?

         Brian may not be who you think he is, but you’re having trouble recognizing yourself at the moment. This isn’t you. This is the guy who punched T in the face maybe, but that’s not who you want to be. You want to be the guy who deserves to be looked at like somebody’s hero, like the guy who makes things better, not worse.

         You wince when Brian abruptly catches your hair in a firm grip. He presses his mouth hard against your ear. “Stop it,” he hisses. “I can tell when you’re thinking about him.”

         Your heart misses a beat. “Don’t…”

          “Don’t what?”

         What you think is: _don’t bring Will even further into this._ What you say is: “Don’t be an asshole.”

         Scowling, Brian maneuvers you over onto your back somewhat rougher than necessary. You lift your hips off the bed so he can get your pants off. Brian throws them over the side of the bed, and then kicks his own off before crawling over you.

         Brian rocks against you, sliding your cocks together, until you’re moaning and moving with him. With his hands hooked under your thighs, he hikes you up higher until you wrap your legs around him, pulling him in closer and creating a tighter friction between your bodies.

         For all the anger, there is still so much want in his eyes. He groans. “Damn you, Sonny…”

         You could have left it at that, let him be a jerk, and allowed yourself to be distracted by the amazing sensation of his naked body on yours. But Brian just can’t _let it go._

         Panting, he gasps out, “It’s not romantic to still be clinging to this, you know. To _him_. At this point, it’s just stubborn.”

         Your temper flares. “Brian, will you just _shut up?_ ” You kiss him _hard_ because you just want him to _stop._ Stop doing this thing where he’s being horrible and hates Will for no reason.

         He doesn’t know anything about you and Will.

         Brian starts rocking against you again, but it’s not enough like this, not when he had to go and needle you where you’re most sensitive.

         With a strong roll of your bodies, you’re back on top, straddling him. Brian doesn’t fight the move. He can still make your knees weak just as easily from below as above. As if to prove it, he makes you whimper with a strong stroke of your cock, followed by fingers teasing at your entrance. Soon, his fingers are stretching and moving inside you. A twist of his fingers, and you nearly come right then. Damn Brian. No matter what, he seems to have more control of this situation than you do.

         A strike of inspiration has you leaning over to grab one of Brian’s academic ribbons from the nightstand. You don’t remember what he won it for, but it should do regardless.

         He tenses when he sees what you’re holding. “What are you doing?”

         You grab his wrists and pull them up toward the headboard. “Don’t move,” you tell him as you carefully tie the ribbon around one of his wrists and the headboard. It’s too short to get around both wrists. Your knot is as flimsy as the fabric, but you trust that Brian won’t want to rip his accolade. Catching on, he grips the headboard. Good.

         You pause for a second, taking in your handiwork. Are you really doing this?

         You realize Brian is watching you. Maybe he sees some of your hesitance because his eyes soften slightly when they meet yours. With his free hand, he reaches up and touches your face. Just a soft graze of his fingers on your cheek, but it's completely incongruous to the mood you've set here.

         He’s doing it again. Once was a fluke. Twice is a redefining of your pattern. You don’t want him to be gentle with you. You’re mad at him. You’re mad at yourself.

         Frowning, you grip his wrist and return it to the headboard. “Stay.”

         Brian rolls his eyes, but he takes a hold of the headboard with both hands. “Well?” he prompts.

         This misdirection in your relationship is probably your own fault, so you need to fix it.

         And so you rise up on your knees, position yourself over his cock, and attempt to show him what you _do_ want.

         Brian bites his lip as you slowly impale yourself, his fingers gripping the headboard. You work yourself down until you’ve got most of him inside you. There’s a long shiver that goes up your back and never really stops.

         Brian sucks in a breath. You see him squeeze his eyes shut just long enough to get a hold of himself, and then he’s grinning up at you, all casual arousal and easy defiance. _See? Isn’t this fun?_

          _We’ll see,_ you think. You take a moment to adjust to the stretch and feel of him. Then, breath shuddering, you shift your weight onto your knees and start to move over him, slowly at first but quickly gaining momentum.

         You can tell from his white knuckles and the way Brian is gritting his teeth that he’s doing his best to resist your pace. But you’re riding him now, and he can’t hold out forever.

          “Easy,” he gasps out. You ignore him. You can tell he wants to go slower, to draw this out of you until there are tears in your eyes and a pressure on your chest, but you’re not going to let that happen, not this time.

         You watch Brian’s control fizzle, hear the small, needy sounds he tries to but can’t swallow. Brian is all about control. At the moment, you’re all about taking it away.

         And in the moment, it comes to you, exactly the button to push to get him up to your level. Head thrown back, thighs straining from the exertion, you start moaning his name. “Brian, Brian, Brian…”

         Control snapped, his knees go up on either side of you, feet planted on the bed, and he slams up into you just as you’re lowering yourself— and you cry out for real this time. He meets you thrust for thrust, and it’s so good you lose yourself in the rhythm for a minute. “Oh, God, Brian…”

         But just as you’re reaching the climax, you stop.

         Brian makes a bereft sound. He looks up at you, confused. Before he can ask, you start again, but slower this time, breaking his rhythm.

         You can see he’s getting frustrated. It’s your turn to smirk at him. Brian narrows his eyes at you, maybe finally understanding what you’re attempting here.

          (Maybe he’ll explain it to you.)

         You aren’t expecting it when he says, “Fuck it,” and rips his wrist out of the ribbon. Before you know it, he’s flipped you over onto your side. Mirroring you, he pulls you in and hikes your leg up and over his hip. You moan when he slides back into you.

         Somehow, you’ve lost the thread again. Why you keep looking to lust to solve your problems, you’ll never know. But you’re gripping his shoulders, his face, and kissing him as he fucks you with hard, desperate thrusts.

         Lust seems to be getting the better of Brian, too. He’s as mad as you are, but he’s gripping you as if he never wants to stop. You understand.

         But you’re more confused than ever now, and he’s moaning things into your neck that you’re in no place to hear. And then he’s kissing you through the orgasm.

         And there’s an ache building up in your chest that you’re not ready for.

         Why is he doing this to you?

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

         Only afterward, when you’re both staring up at the ceiling instead of at each other and it’s been quiet for too long, do you ask.

         “Why did you tell Will we slept together?”

         There’s sweat rapidly cooling on your skin, and the room has never been colder. You shiver when Brian rolls away from you, presenting his back.

         His voice is flat. “Go to sleep, Sonny.”

         You could push him, make him explain.

         But something tells you that you don’t want to hear it.

 

 

         **________________________**

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Selections of dialogue were adapted from the February 8, 2013 episode (the “Sonny and Gabi have it out” scene) and the February 22, 2013 episode (the “Sonny overhears Kate and Lucas" and the “Sonny comforts Will at the hospital” scenes).
> 
> 2\. If you're interested, then I've compiled a Companion Soundtrack to this story. [Take a listen over here](http://8tracks.com/starvinbohemian/the-loose-ends-will-make-knots) or check out the lyrics and character assignment [over here](http://starvinbohemian.livejournal.com/301944.html).


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A confrontation long in the making.

        Yesterday, you dreamed of sand, sun, and heat.

        What you wake up to today is a harsh light in your eyes and an ache all throughout your body.

        It’s confusing at first because you don't remember falling asleep in the first place. For hours, you laid stiff on the bed as the room gradually brightened around you— strangely like falling asleep in reverse— and the only sound was Brian’s soft breaths beside you.

        Now, you can hear cars and neighbors outside Brian’s window as they go about the daily grind. Even without, you could probably guess from the way the sheets are sticky-warm beneath you and from the crick in your neck that it must be late afternoon by now.

        However long you slept, it was either too much sleep or not enough. You’re groggy and sore.

        You're about to roll out of bed when the reason for your discomfort suddenly stirs beside you.

        There’s a moment when you seriously consider just closing your eyes and pretending to still be asleep.

        (You don’t, but the temptation is there.)

        Brian’s feet fall with a solid thump onto the floor. Head lolling forward, he rises slowly like a drugged man.

        Gingerly rolling out his shoulders, he hisses softly in pain. You obviously weren’t the only one who spent hours lying awake in discomfort.

         _Good_ , you think halfheartedly.

        Staring at his naked back, you start to speak, and then change your mind. There’s a heavy weight at the end of your tongue. You don’t know what to say.

        So, you say nothing, and Brian shuffles off into the bathroom. The door shuts quietly behind him. Soon, you hear the sound of water running.

        You might as well have pretended to be asleep, because you didn’t say a word and he never even looked at you to notice the difference.

 

_____________________________________________

 

        Once alone, you release the breath you were holding.

        Feeling a little lost and a lot vulnerable, knots firm in your belly, you leave the bed in search of the nearest available armor.

        Your pants are nowhere to be seen. You have no idea where Brian threw them. This realization should make you laugh— such a ridiculous, innocuous thing— but it's not funny. Not today. Today, it feels sordid.

        Shuddering, you pull on the first shirt you find. Of course, once you’ve pulled it on and the shirt somehow manages to be both too long and too tight, you realize it isn't yours.

        There’s a second where you just stare dumbly at your chest, as if the shirt owes you an explanation for being the wrong one. It just goes to show how stressed you’ve been that you have no idea what you were wearing just a few hours ago.

        Oddly, you have no trouble remembering what Will was wearing yesterday— blue shirt, black blazer, scarf— or the way he looked at you when he said...

         _“I love you. I’m going to keep telling you so you don’t forget.”_

        A flutter goes through your chest.

        But he also said…

         _“Brian isn’t who you think he is.”_

        And, just like that, the flutter turns to lead.

        There is a reason you're still here.

        Just a few hours ago, you were so angry with Brian that your brain felt as if it were on fire. _Still_ , you think guiltily, _you managed to end up right back in bed. How does that work exactly?_

        You might still feel bewildered, but it's safe to say that you don’t feel angry anymore. Just tired and a bit worn through— like an old sweater. The things Brian said… the things you said…

        They make you burn with embarrassment.

        That whole encounter spun out of control before you even realized it was happening. For some reason, your self-control seems to go right out the window where Brian is concerned.

        You’re still chewing on that uncomfortable thought when the sound of running water abruptly disappears, and you freeze like a deer in headlights.

        Time passes, and Brian doesn't reemerge immediately. You relax enough to appreciate the absurdity of your standing alone in the middle of your not-boyfriend's apartment, naked except for the wrong shirt, bare feet cold on the floor, and scared of being caught existing in the wrong way.

        You find your own clothes and pull them on with some relief. But the room is still cold outside Brian's stifling blankets, and so, shivering, you return to bed.

        It occurs to you that you should probably leave and seek out warmth from your own blankets in your own apartment. Maybe you will, but not before you have this out. You didn't come back here for an angry hookup. You came back for answers.

        You don’t want to ask him— you _really_ don’t— but you have to.

        Because you don’t understand why someone would do what Brian did. How he could walk right up to Will, someone he supposedly considered a friend, and taunt him about bedding you. That’s just…

        It’s not just a moral question. Even solely on a logical level, it doesn’t make sense. What did he have to gain from it? You and Brian have never even discussed Will. Not since all this started. Until today, you had no idea Brian was still preoccupied with you-and-Will.

        (Or that he knew _you_ still were.)

        It’s just that… This is the guy who comforted you when you were upset about Alex, and then (sort of) confided in you about his troubled relationship with his father. The one who made you pancakes and kissed you in the snow. The one who you’ve been sharing your body and your bed with.

        He’s also the one who fucked you and then used you as a weapon against the love of your life and for no apparent reason.

        (And, yeah, that hurts.)

        How are they the same person?

        Maybe they aren’t.

         _“Brian isn’t who you think he is.”_

        You press your face hard into the pillow— God, it smells like you now— until all you see is white, white, _white_.

        Forget your stomach. It’s your head that’s in knots

 

______________________________________________

 

        You look up with a start when the bathroom door finally creaks open.

        Wearing a towel, Brian moves quietly around the room collecting various clothing. You avert your eyes as he dresses even though he doesn’t seem to notice that you’re awake. Probably because you’ve burrowed yourself deep into the blankets as if they could protect you. When he quickly reaches up to still some clinking hangers in his closet, you realize he’s not just being considerate. He’s actively trying not to wake you.

        And that he’s dressing to leave.

        Giving up your cocoon, you sit up with a sigh. “Sneaking out?”

        You were only teasing, but the way he freezes at the sound of your voice makes you wonder.

        Brian barely glances at you. “I have a test in an hour,” he says, pulling on his boots. “And I haven’t even looked at the book.”

        “That’s unlike you.”

        Brian smiles without humor. “Yeah. Well. I’ve been kind of distracted lately.”

        Oh.

        “I really think we should talk before you go.”

        “About what, Sonny?” he asks, mocking your serious tone.

        “About last night? About... you and me?”

        “And Will?” he adds sharply.

         _Here we go._

        Hugging your knees to your chest, you struggle to find the words. They don’t come easily—where to even begin?— but Brian is already giving you an impatient look, so you just blurt out, “I can’t believe you told him about us.”

        One would think— yes, _one would think_ — that Brian would feel ashamed of himself, that you would be able to see his guilt or embarrassment at being found out for what he did.

        You don’t see that. Instead, he scoffs at you. “God forbid.”

        "What?"

        “Sorry, let me elaborate. _God forbid_ anyone should know that you’ve been fucking _me_.”

        It’s crude and direct enough to make you cringe. You knew this could be bad, but you didn't foresee the level of Brian's anger.

        “Don’t do that. You know that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not _ashamed_ of—”

        “Sure. That’s why I haven’t been introduced to anyone in your life and why you never want anyone to know you’re here.”

        No. He doesn’t get to pull that on you. Not when he’s never once shown the slightest interest in meeting any of your friends or family until this very moment. It’s no mystery why.

        “Stop deflecting!” you snap. “You know Will isn’t just anyone!”

         _That_ seems to strike a chord. The mocking smile disappears, leaving Brian looking sullen.

        He obviously feels _something_ , but it’s not enough. You wanted— _needed_ — to see him display some guilt, because he _should_ feel guilty. But no. He won't even give you that.

        Frustration seeps into your tone. “That was messed up, Brian. Really messed up. Worse, it was cruel.” How can he not see that?

        Brian’s lips form a thin line.

        “Will didn’t deserve that. He never did anything to you.”

        Will could have been angry. You would have been. At Brian. At _you_.

        But he wasn’t. No, he was just worried for you. He thought you should know who you were sleeping with. Because he—

        “Yes, yes, poor Will.” Brian pulls on his coat. “I’m sorry, Sonny, but I am not going to be late for my test just so I can stand here and listen to you defend Will Horton to me.”

        God help you, but he’s actually going to walk out on this conversation.

        You didn’t want this to be a fight, but the fury explodes out of you. “Are you kidding me? Brian, how am I supposed to defend _you_?”

        He stills at that.

        “How am I supposed to justify being here right now? Like _this_?” You don't think you could, no matter what excuse Brian gave you. And that just makes it worse, doesn't it?

        There’s still no guilt, but at least you can see hurt and anger now on his face, as if you’ve actually managed to wound him, as if _you’re_ the bad guy here. It isn’t fair of him to make you feel guilty. You’re angry, but hurting him isn’t what you want.

        Leaning your forehead against your knees, you struggle to reign in your temper. “I just don’t get it,” you say. “What were you thinking? You didn’t have to...”

         _Who the hell are you?_

        Brian’s hand drops from the doorknob. “Yes. I did.”

        It's the calm, factual way he says it that makes you look up in surprise. “Why?”

        Brian sighs. The look he gives you then makes the knots in your stomach tighten. “Do you really not know?”

        Do you?

        You…

        ... do.

        The words slip out before you can stop them. “Are you jealous of Will?”

        “Did you sleep with him?” he counters.

        Stung, you say, _“No.”_ Maybe you say it too quickly, because he doesn’t look convinced. Is that why he's so angry with you? Because he thought you were off having sex with Will?

        (You could have. You thought about it. Brian doesn’t know that.)

        He grips the doorknob again but doesn’t turn it. “Are you getting back together with him?”

        “No." You pause. You don’t mean it to sound like a guilty admission, but it still kind of does when you add, “We're going to be friends again.”

        You don’t know exactly how that’s going to work yet, but you’re not going to abandon Will again right after promising to be there for him.

        “What kind of friends? Friends like we’re ‘friends?’” He doesn’t have to explain what he means by that.

        “Just friends,” you say, dropping your gaze.

        Brian snorts. “You’re lying.”

        Annoyed, you give up the warm bed to be on equal footing with him. It feels wrong to remain sitting when he’s obviously determined to be this confrontational. “What am I supposed to say to that?”

        “How about the truth?”

        “I told you I was with Will! And I’m not going to apologize for being there last night when he needed me!”

        Brian starts pacing as if the room isn’t big enough to hold all of his frustration with you. “He needed you all night? Hospitals don’t allow visitors _all night_ , Sonny.”

        “I didn’t say we were there all night!”

        You might as well be talking to a wall, because he gives no indication he heard you. “You’re going to be _friends_ ,” he sneers. “What am I supposed to do while you and Will are off being best buddies? Where do I fit into this scenario you and Will cooked up?”

        It’s the same question you asked yourself. And you still don’t have an answer.

        At your silence, Brian gives a dark laugh. “Or did that part just not come up?”

        Before you can think up a suitable response— how quickly he’s managed to turn this around so that you’re the one on the defensive— your phone gives a sudden chirp, alerting you to a text.

        You and Brian both turn in tandem to stare at the phone, sitting innocently on his nightstand.

        Brian shakes his head slowly. “If that is Will, then so help me…”

        You calmly place the phone in your pocket without looking at it. “Can we please just start this over?”

        Brian ignores you. "I want to know why he’s calling you.”

        “You don’t even know who—”

        “No, go ahead and answer it,” he says. “Then, you can tell me all about how much he _needs_ you right now.”

        You know you have no right to feel hurt, but none of the pieces seem to be aligning where they should, and so it is what it is. “You’re not being fair.”

        “Fair?” He makes the word sound as if it’s from a foreign language. Maybe, to him, it is.

        “If it were Neil—”

        His angry look cuts you off. “Sorry, no. I’ve never fucked Neil. I’ve never been _in love_ with Neil.” He shakes his head again, looking disgusted. “You know, it’s hard enough when Will is only figuratively in bed with us. Now, he’s actually going to be—”

        The blush heats your face. “It’s not like that!”

        “I don’t know if you’re even trying to get over him anymore.”

        How can he say that you aren’t trying?

        “Then what is this?” you demand with a sweep of your hand over the bed sheets.

        Brian glares at you, arms crossed tight against his chest. His stormy expression tells you that it really is time to stop and take a deep breath. You learned just this morning that you and Brian fighting is the equivalent of rubbing two matchsticks together. No one gets what they need. You just burn.

        (And burn you did.)

        “You tell me,” he says.

        Tell him what? He _knows_. He’s upset with you, and you can understand that much, but he’s the one who set the tone for this. If you’d known it was going to get this serious, you never would have started. Brian must know that. Yet, he still…

        No one should be able to tell you that what you’ve been doing here is wrong, least of all him. No one but you, because you at least knew that your heart wasn’t free at the start of this. That was supposed to be okay. _He_ made you believe it was.

        “Brian,” you say, gently, apologetically, “you said you were okay with casual.”

        And there it is, a reprimand and a plea all in one.

        “I say a lot of stupid things,” he says bitterly.

        Oh.

        A sharp intake of breath becomes its own sentence. It’s not as if you didn’t suspect, but…

        He frowns at your stricken expression, as if he can read your mind. His tone softens. “Come on, Sonny. Don’t you think we passed ‘casual’ a while ago?”

        He’s right. He’s also not saying anything you don’t already know. You knew you were in trouble when Brian didn’t seem interested in Sam, when he basically invited you to move in.

        But how were you supposed to know the difference? There hasn’t been any change in his behavior to indicate…

        … maybe because there never was one. From the start, Brian has been too hungry, too aggressive, always crowding you in and never giving you a moment to breathe, to question his motivations beyond the obvious.

        And maybe that should have always been the clue-in. Someone only looking for something casual wouldn’t pursue so determinedly.

        He said what you wanted to hear in order to get what he wanted.

        And you let him. Even though you knew…

        You knew. You did.

        When Brian said, “I’m not giving this up for anyone,” he wasn’t talking about sex. He was talking about you. You thought— you _wanted_ — this to be all about sex. But it wasn’t because…

        You really fucked this up.

        Sucking in a breath, you sink back down to the bed. The movement must click something for Brian, must trigger your familiar pattern of _pull me/push you_ , because he gives up his angry pacing to stalk toward you.

        “Sonny…”

        For the first time, he sounds as lost as you feel. He kneels before you, hands on your knees, his expression entreating. And now you really do feel like the bad guy.

        “Brian,” you say helplessly, “I don’t know what you want.” Liar, liar, liar. “If you want something besides… _this_ , then you’re going to have to say it.”

        You can see his inner conflict play out across his face, the words hovering right there on the edge of his tongue. He nervously squeezes your knees. “I want…”

        Immediately, you want to take it back. You pushed him to say it, and now you don’t want to hear it after all.

        To your relief, Brian seems to lose his nerve. “I want to know that I don’t have to be standing right in front of you in order to be on your mind.”

        Unlike Will, who is always, always on your mind.

        Brian tries to take your hand. You pull away before you can think about it, only to immediately feel horrible for it. He looks so hurt, but you can’t do this. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He said, damn it, _he said_ …

        Reaching up, he cups your face and makes you look at him even though you don’t want to. “Sonny... we're good together, aren't we?”

        You’ve never seen him so vulnerable. Yet another face Brian has hidden from you. Seeing him like this makes you want to shrink away, but he’s still holding you.

        Brian leans in. You think he’s going to kiss you, maybe force you into remembering how good you are together in one very specific way. That would be so unfair because it’s not the same thing, even if, sometimes, in the moment, you lose yourself, and even now could imagine letting him push you back into the bed, because it would be easier than actually talking about this…

        You gently push him back. “Brian, I’m not...”

        “What?” He’s staring intently at you.

         _Ready_. You say, “In a good place right now.”

        “You think I don’t know that?”

        Does he? Because he doesn’t know you. Not really. He won’t let you know him.

        This isn’t what you want.

        And Brian knows. It’s there on his face before he can hide it from you, the horrible disappointment. It’s so obvious he wanted this to go differently.

        You wanted this to go differently.

        He stands and backs away from you. “I know what I want,” he says. “But you don’t. Until you do…”

         _Yes?_

        “I think we should take a break.”

        It’s the out you wanted.

        You can’t look at him any more. “Okay.”

        “Go home, Sonny.”

 

_____________________________________________

 

        Beep.

         _“Hey, Sonny. It’s me. I wanted… I guess I just wanted to hear your voice. Is that weird? Sorry, I just… I know it’s only been a couple of days since I saw you. I guess I just thought we would have talked by now. I texted you…_

         _Um. Gabi is doing okay at the hospital. The doctors say she and the baby are doing good. Things are… bad with my mom. I told her…_

         _Look, can I see you? It’s weird to talk about this stuff with your voice mail. I… I miss you. Can I tell you that? That I miss you? I do. So… Please call me back.”_

        Beep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, as always, for the long wait between chapters. This chapter kept growing and morphing into different things, rewritten from eighty different angles. And once it became 30 pages long, I decided to divide it up into separate chapters. So, your eyes aren't deceiving you. The chapter count went up, and chapter 11 will be up shortly. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has continued to support this fic. I'm humbled by and full of love for you.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An encounter in a bathroom stall goes awry. Yup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It probably goes without saying at this point, but I'm working with the characterization T had back in the beginning of the WilSon saga, when he was less than the ideal advocate he's become as of late on the show. For the record, I love him both ways.

        The temperature drops again overnight.

        The windows in your apartment have iced over. Through the white glare, everyone you see below on the street looks like walking piles of laundry. Thick scarves and jackets with feet.

        You’re already wearing your comforter as a blanket. Once the heater in your apartment officially putters out, you finally give up on pretense and crawl back into bed. It’s one o’clock in the afternoon.

        Miserable, you bundle in and press your face flat against the mattress, not bothering with a pillow. You washed all the linens right away, trying to get to rid of that musty, neglected smell your apartment adopted in your absence. Now, your sheets smell like fresh detergent. They’re still uncomfortable but not enough to make you move.

        Will left you messages on your voice mail. Beneath the blankets, where it’s safe, his voice provides a comforting hum against your ear. Eyes closed, you allow yourself a moment to drift and let him take you backwards, back to warm hands, his breath against your ear, and that familiar feeling in your chest… until that gets uncomfortable, too.

        You’ve gone as far as to dial his number. No further. The longer you go without calling him back, the weaker your excuses become.

        You’re not intentionally avoiding him.

        You just haven’t figured out what to say.

_______________________________________________________________

        When you’re not at work, you find yourself spending most of your time alone.

        You’ve never wanted a television in your place before, but you buy one after the silence starts to get to you.

        It’s strange, because you were never the kind of person who minded being alone. You traveled the world on your own once and without a fleck of anxiety. You can recall entire days spent wandering jungles and scaling mountains without ever exchanging a word with another human soul. Those were some of the best times of your life.

        But that must have been someone else wandering those jungles, because you bought a television and it’s been a while since you showed your face at work. Or left the apartment.

        There are people you could call, but then you would have to explain why you need them in the first place. You don’t want to talk about it. Or think about it.

        So, of course, that’s all you do.

        You go over and over it in your mind as you try to isolate the precise places where you messed up. It turns out it’s easier to pick out the places where you didn’t.

        Wrong or right, somewhere along the way, you turned Brian into your crutch. Without him around to distract you from yourself, you actually have to face the empty apartment and the overall mess your life has become.

        You haven’t heard from Brian. That’s… that’s fair.

        It’s not as if he owes you an explanation. He obviously has his reasons for cutting you off. You don’t blame him. He needs space from you, just as you need space from Will to figure things out.

        (And, hey, if he figures it out, then that means you won’t have to.)

        You get it. It’s just that— and it feels callous to even think it— but this is the first time he’s ever been unavailable to you. You’ve never really let yourself dwell on it, but he was always quick to drop whatever he was doing whenever you wanted him.

        (And, lately, you’ve wanted him.)

        He’s smart to stay away. Will should take a page from his book.

        No, that isn’t fair. Will leads with his heart. It’s just one of the things that you love about him. But one of you has to be cautious here, because there have been bridges built and spectacularly burned between you. You didn’t stop to think before when you probably should have, and now look at you. Look at all of you. The only one who seems to have thought any of this out in advance is Brian, and you _really don’t want_ to think any more about that either.

        You won’t go so far as to say that getting involved with Will was a mistake— it wasn't— but maybe if you had just waited, had given him more time... Maybe things would have turned out different. For everyone.

        You didn’t wait. You couldn’t. You’re waiting now. All you’re doing is waiting, and now you feel mired in indecision.

        You don’t want to miss Brian.

        Is there even any room left to miss Brian when you’re already so consumed with missing Will?

        Everything just feels so heavy these days, as if the simplest thing takes twice the energy it should. When everything is so hard, the last thing you want to do is face the messes you’ve made all around you— something that would be difficult even under the best of circumstances.

        It’s such a tenuous thing on any given day, but you can feel your tether to _being okay_ starting to fray.

_______________________________________________________________

        For her, you make an effort.

        “It's chilly out here!”

        She doesn’t hear your response the first time because she’s leaning too far over the patio railing outside your bedroom. One of your neighbors is blasting generic electronica out their window.

        Adrienne playfully shakes out her shaggy blond hair in the icy breeze, her teeth bright and smiling. Watching your mother makes you think of '60s Hollywood starlets. She’s still lovely, but you imagine she must have truly dazzled when she was young.

        “What was that, honey?”

        “ _I said_ to come in from the cold.”

        You don’t know why she’s in such a euphoric mood. It’s making you feel kind of better and kind of worse. Trying to keep your mood up for her is exhausting. You wish your father, with his serene disposition, were here as a buffer so you wouldn’t have to take the full brunt of it alone.

        “Then I couldn’t spy on your neighbor across the way there. I think she's having an affair with the married guy two windows down.”

        Cross-legged on your bed, you hug your pillow to your chest. “You're being nosy again. Have you never seen _Rear Window_?”

        “I’ve always loved Grace Kelly,” she says wistfully. “I used to have a dress that looked like the one she wore in that movie. Do you remember?”

        You indulge her even though you don’t. “Of course.”

        She performs a little twirl, holding out the edges of her dress, as you both imagine it as a different one. You could be five again and watching her get ready for a fancy party. Begging to stave off bedtime because you know it means she’ll leave.

        Exhausting as she can be, you love her. Always have regardless of what was happening between her and your father.

        (Or you and Will.)

        “I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to wear it in Texas,” she says wryly.

        “I guess not.”

        You share an understanding smile.

        The life you led in Texas feels like it happened to someone else. It was one of the rare times when your day-to-day life didn’t involve mansions or mountains or titans of industry.

        Instead, there was football and dirt on your knees and hot summers spent outside with your brothers. What might have been normal for other people was just the Kiriakis clan playing dress up with other people’s lives, as if your parents were trying to recreate what they thought normal people did.

        Still. It was nice. For a while.

        You realize now that your family’s time in Texas was your father’s version of Africa. A shot in the dark at a chance for a new beginning. You can understand that much even if the choice of Texas still baffles you.

        Her smile softens as she looks at you. “Do you remember when we used to people-watch at that mall? All those characters we saw?”

        “Sure, Mom.”

        “I miss that,” she says.

        You lost your taste for people-watching when you became the subject for other people’s people-watching. Though, that’s been happening less and less lately. Your melodrama with Will became old news once Brady Black scandalized Salem by falling in love with his father’s former lover and his stepmother’s former kidnapper. Good old Salem. Always another scandal on the horizon.

        You smile weakly at her. It’s clearly the wrong thing to do because her face falls. You feel bad, but you have been trying. It’s just that the longer this visit goes, the more your efforts start to wane.

        She sits beside you. “Honey, where have you been?”

        You frown down at your pillow, clutched tight in your arms. “What do you mean? I’ve been right here.”

        She bites her lip and then tentatively says, “You know, you can tell me if you’re back together with Will.”

        That… wasn’t what you were expecting.

        “What? Mom, I’m not. We’re not.”

        She looks almost comically relieved. “Oh. Good. I mean—”

        “It’s fine, Mom,” you say tiredly. You know how she felt about you and Will. The whole town knew how she felt about that.

        “I only meant that you could tell me. If you were, I mean. I heard…”

        “What did you hear?”

        “That you were there for him at the hospital.”

        Even in the midst of personal crisis, people still find the time to gossip. You sigh. “I was there as a friend.”

        “Okay.”

        She continues staring at you as if you might crack and offer up the truth if she just waits long enough. But then she abruptly changes tracts on you.

        “Alex asked me for your address.”

        She says it like a tease. As if this news should excite you.

        What you actually feel is perplexed. Alex has been a semi-taboo subject between you for a long time. “Why?”

        Eyes shining with suppressed pleasure, she shrugs like a little girl smugly holding onto a secret. Since she’s your mother, you can safely assume it’s not for a malicious reason. You just can’t imagine why.

        Suspicious, you ask, “Did Alex tell you we talked?”

        Her face lights up. “You did? When?”

        She seems sincerely surprised, and you’re ridiculously relieved Alex didn’t tell your mother about your sad, weepy drunk calls in the middle of the night. You should have assumed she didn’t know, because there’s no way she would have stayed away this long if she had. That kind of thing would have been one of those red flags she’s always looking out for.

        “I really feel as if he’s coming around.”

        You remember the tense silence on the phone when you accidentally told him there was another man in bed with you. “Maybe.”

        “Yeah,” she says happily. “Maybe.”

        It sounds completely different when she says it.

_______________________________________________________________

        You do eventually have to show your face at work. It is your business after all, as Chad cheerfully reminds you.

        It’s his business, too, which is why you’re only amused when, on the patio behind Common Grounds, he passes you the joint.

        Coughing slightly, he leans back against the stacked boxes and gives you a benign smile. Between the boxes and the overgrown foliage that’s managed to creep over the side of the surrounding brick wall, there’s only just barely enough room for the two of you on patio. His long legs stretch out beside yours.

        Your senses are already full of coffee grounds and potted plumeria; the heat lamps on either side of you only seem to magnify their scents. You pass the joint back with a grimace. “No thanks.”

        You weren’t planning on coming into work today, but the fact that Chad actually took the time to call and ask if you were was enough of a hint that you’ve been taking too much time off lately and for no legitimate reason.

        Chad shrugs and takes another drag. “Suit yourself. Just thought you could use a break.”

        “This is a break.”

        “Not that kind of break. I meant, like, a break from yourself. Know what I mean?”

        God help you, but you do know what he means.

        You barely made it through the lunch rush before Chad was pulling you outside. Your exhaustion was obvious. You were mixing up orders left and right, so you went without a fight.

        “You look a mess, bro.”

        “Thanks, man.”

        “I just meant—”

        “No, I know. I just… I guess I feel a mess.” You can admit that much.

        “Abigail is worried about you.”

        You raise an eyebrow at that. “She told you she was worried about me?” Last you heard, Abigail had cut Chad off for sabotaging Gabi’s wedding and subsequently torpedoing your relationship with Will. Times change.

       Chad can likely sense what you’re thinking. He suddenly looks uncomfortable. “Yeah. I think she’s finally coming around.”

        “Oh. Well, that’s good.”

        “You would be cool with it if she gave me another chance?”

        He looks so earnest, as if your opinion would really make a difference. You shrug. “Why not?” You want Abigail to be happy. Chad seemed to make her happy once. Why not again?

        “You know, I’m really sor—”

        “It’s _fine_. Really.” You never blamed him for what happened. If he had never spoken up, then you might have never found out the truth about Gabi’s baby. Of course, he could have chosen a better moment to drop that particular truth bomb, but that’s neither here nor there now.

        He seems relieved. “Okay.”

        “You can tell Abigail she doesn’t have to worry. I’m fine.” You shake your leg out to keep it from going to sleep. Someone should really unpack these boxes before they either freeze from the weather or melt from the lamps, but it’s not going to be you today.

        “Yeah, but _are_ you?”

        “I am,” you insist. You would have firmer legs to stand on right now if Chad didn't just have to rescue you from the benign elderly of the lunch crowd.

        He makes a skeptical sound around his joint. “You still seeing that Brian guy?”

        You’re not the one smoking, but you choke as if you were. “You knew about…?”

        He rolls his eyes. “It’s not like I’m _blind_. It’s been like an episode of _Dynasty_ up in here.”

        “Sorry,” you say, chagrined. “I wasn’t really trying to hide it. It’s just—”

        “You just wanted some privacy to deal with your stuff. I get it.”

        You’re pathetically grateful. “Thanks, man.”

        “Will was here.”

        It’s your turn to eye him. Chad just looks… like Chad. Present but not particularly concerned. “When?”

        “This morning. He was looking for you. I didn’t say, but I figured you were at Brian’s. Were you?” He doesn’t sound as if he’s judging you.

        “No. I wasn’t.”

        “Because of Will?”

        You shake your head.

        “But you’re still with Brian?”

        “No.”

        “Okay… so you’re not with Brian. And you’re not with Will.”

        You shake out your leg again, staring hard at your shoe. “That’s right. It’s just me. By myself.”

        He gives you a keen look. “But Will is looking for you, and you’re avoiding him. You’re avoiding Brian, too.”

        “I never said…”

        “Abigail said it was 'complicated.' I thought she was exaggerating. You have two guys both waiting for you to get the other one out of your system. Doesn’t seem that complicated to me.”

        Baffled by his impromptu insight, you’re left staring blankly at him. After a moment, you hold out your hand. “Give it to me.”

        Chad hands the joint over with a laugh. “Aw. Poor Sonny.”

        You snort. “Yeah, poor me.”

        “Everyone wants a piece, huh?”

        “Stop.”

        He snickers. “Your milkshake brings all the boys to the yard…”

        “ _Stop_.”

        “Okay, okay.” Dropping the teasing, he leans forward with an eager air. “I wasn’t kidding about your needing a break. Come out with me tonight.”

        Your first thought is to say no. Going out tonight is the last thing you want to do. “I don't think—”

        “Come on, Sonny. We need some boys’ time. When was the last time before today when we had a conversation that wasn’t about this place?”

        Fair point. You can’t remember the last time. “Well…”

        “You know you want to.”

        You really, really don’t, but…

        “Don't make me bat my lashes at you.”

        He makes an exaggerated ‘come hither’ face that makes you grimace. “Please don't.”

        “I'll make you a deal. I'll cover the rest of your shift here. You go home, take a nap, shower, and then meet me later in the square.” He gives your leg a companionable nudge. “What do you say?”

        It’s obvious that Chad wants to help. It just so happens that he’s caught you in a mood where you’re tired of being other people’s problem. And so, with an internal sigh, you decide to let him.

        “All right.”

_______________________________________________________________

        You take Chad’s advice and go home.

        It turns out he was right. A long shower and an even longer nap really do you a world of good.

        You’re still not crazy about going out when you feel like this, but Chad means well and a strong drink and loud music should keep the conversation down to a minimum. It’s not as if you have to stay out all night.

        You used to like staying out all night. When did you get so tired?

        Later, you find yourself sitting in Horton Town Square, waiting for Chad. You're scanning the crowd for him when you spot a familiar face approaching.

        You don’t mean to make a sour face, but you do, and he laughs to see it. The low lamplight has him half in shadow and looking nearly sinister, particularly when he grins. “Sup, Sonny?”

        “Hello, T,” you say warily.

        “You’re looking suspiciously dapper,” he says.

        “I... don’t know what that means.”

        “It means ‘dressed up.’ Geez. You really don't bother going to class anymore, do you?”

        You try breathing through your nose to keep calm. “I know what _‘dapper’_ means, you— no, you know what? Never mind.”

        “Are you meeting someone? Please tell me you’re not just sitting here alone like a total freak.”

        “Wow. I am so glad I ran into you.”

        Your sarcasm just seems to fuel him. “I live to please.”

        “Right.”

        “Seriously. Who are you meeting? It’s not that Brian guy, is it?”

        “Not that it would be any of your business if I were.” You could tell him you’re waiting for Chad, but then T might want to hang around longer to see him.

        “What? I can’t look out for you?” He continues over your incredulous look. “That guy is a total tool. You should have seen what he did at that party—”

        “ _T_!” you snap.

        “What?”

        “You’re busy. Don’t let me keep you from, you know, _whatever_.”

        He smirks at you. “Naw. I’ll just wait. I have a feeling we’re going to the same place.”

        “I doubt that.”

        “Dude. There’s only one gay bar in this town. You’re going to the Spot. Right?”

        You’re staring. You know you are. “Are _you_?”

        T shrugs. “Guess so.”

Well... oh.

        You’re too flabbergasted to speak anyway, so it’s good timing when Chad's text arrives.

         _“Sorry. Abigail’s here. Running late. Meet you inside?”_

        Abigail, huh? You could be waiting a long time. Might as well get a drink.

        Standing, you ask, "Does Audrey know you spend your nights trolling gay bars?”

        “Ha ha. You’re hilarious.”

        “Why are you going to the Spot then?”

        “Meeting a friend,” he says vaguely.

        You raise an eyebrow at that. "Really."

        "Yeah, but he's running late, so I guess I’ll just go in with you.”

        Your shoulders slump. “That’s… just great, T.”

        This feels like a game of chicken. You watch the doorman stamp his hand and wait for him to admit it’s all a joke. But he follows you inside and surveys the bar with a distinct sneer on his face. “Oh. My. God. What is this place?”

        “Your homophobic nightmare,” you say, feeling vindictive. “You know, I hear there are actual straight bars around…”

        “Aw. Sonny is funny today. How cute.”

        He puts his hands on your shoulders and starts herding you through the crowd towards the bar like his own personal bulldozer. You let him push you through, smiling apologetically at the people you accidentally bump into.

        Strangely, you recognize a lot of people in the crowd. Guys from the university and… the crew team? Just as you’re thinking it, you bump into someone. “Sorry!”

        “Sonny?”

        Startled, you look up into familiar blue eyes and feel your heart sink. “Hey, Brian.” You say it quietly even though he probably can’t hear you over the bar noise.

        He looks just as shaken to see you here. You’re staring at each other, frozen in this awkward situation, until T reminds you of his presence at your back.

        “Hey, Brian,” he says, mocking your tone.

        Brian looks between you, frowning, before re-focusing in on you. “Did Neil invite you?”

        “To what?”

        “It’s my birthday,” Neil explains with a tight smile. To your chagrin, you didn't even notice him standing there beside Brian until he spoke.

        “Oh. Well, happy birthday, Neil.” That explains all the familiar faces in the crowd.

        He accepts your salutation with another tight smile.

        Just when the awkwardness threatens to swallow you all whole, Brian’s crew-mate, Jimmy, materializes from the crowd and grips your shoulder in a friendly way. “Sonny, you came! Come have a drink with us!”

        “Um.” You send an uncertain look at Brian, but he’s pretending to be distracted by something across the bar. “You heard the man,” T says, and he starts shoving you forward again after Jimmy.

        Even over the music and the chatter, you just barely hear Neil mutter under his breath, “Well, happy birthday to me.”

_______________________________________________________________

        Along the way, you’ve gotten the impression that Neil has _thoughts_ about you and Brian.

        Or maybe just about you. Thoughts that Brian is likely privy to, and you aren’t. The few times Neil was around, he and Brian spent the whole time having silent conversations between themselves over your head. That got old fast.

        He’s not making it any easier on you now.

        Still, you offer him a peace offering in the form of a beer. He’s not exactly quick to take it from you.

        “You like Shock Top, right?”

        He takes your offering reluctantly and goes back to watching the dancers out on the floor. “Sure, I guess.”

        You sense the dismissal, but you still say, “Sorry to crash your party.”

        No one else seems to realize that you weren’t invited tonight. Brian’s friends act as if it’s perfectly normal that you’re here. Jimmy even engaged you for a while in a conversation about your business. You smiled politely and answered his questions as well as you could. All the while, Brian hung back and watched you with an inscrutable expression. You can’t tell if he’s upset that you’re here and just playing it cool or if he’s genuinely unmoved.

        Neil glances at you before finally taking a swig of your beer. “Yeah, well. I kinda figured we’d be seeing you here tonight.”

        “Why do you say that?”

        “Let’s call it intuition.”

        You know this hostility has to do with Brian. Neil obviously feels more loyalty towards him than you and understandably. It would be completely childish to demand your beer back. You still kind of want to.

        After your failure with Neil, you suffer several other benign conversations. Brian keeps his distance. T sticks to your side like an annoying rash. He only manages to behave himself for all of five minutes before saying, loudly, “Geez, what are those guys doing over there? Oh, _gross_. They’re in public! No one wants to see that!”

        For a split second, you hope against hope that, in turning, you’ll see anything other than two men innocently kissing against a wall. Of course, everyone else turns to see…

       ... two men innocently kissing against a wall. _Damn it, T._

        You want to sink directly into the floor when Brian and Neil turn as one to glare incredulously at you, as if you were the one who said it. You can only shrug helplessly. You didn’t exactly invite T along so much as T just kind of… came. With you. For some reason.

        Before you can head him off, Neil proves that he has a shorter fuse than you. “If this is so horrible for you, then why did you even come here?”

        You wince, but T doesn't. “Not for your fine company, Nancy, that’s for sure.”

        You groan into your hands. “I swear he’s better than he used to be.” No one seems to hear you.

        Forget T. You’re starting to wonder what _you’re_ doing here. Chad is a no-show. Brian won’t even talk to you— not that you've tried talking to him. Things between you and Neil are tense even on a good day. How in the hell T fits into this mix is beyond you.

        “Really,” Neil says, “it wouldn't hurt our feelings if you, you know, _left_.” T might as well have ripped Neil’s civility off like an old band aid.

        T appears completely unperturbed by the hostility being directed his way. “Sucks for you, because I came for my boy Will. He needed a wing-man.”

        Brian’s expression darkens just as your stomach drops for the second time in less than an hour. Will is coming?

        “You’re friends with Will?” Neil looks at you for confirmation, as if hoping T were lying.

        “ _Best_ friends,” T says proudly. He really has come a long way. For him, anyway.

        “Will has questionable taste in friends,” Brian says. It could be your imagination, but he seems relieved to have an excuse to ditch the polite pretense.

_You_ aren't relieved. In fact, there's a hurricane of anxiety building up in your chest. You unconsciously take a step back from them all only to be stopped by T’s hand on your shoulder.

        “Ha ha,” he says dryly. “Seriously, Sonny? This is the guy you dumped Will for? Talk about a down-grade, man.”

        There’s an ache starting behind your temples. You can’t look any of them in the eye. “Shut up, T.”

        Neil looks at all of you in turn, lingering overlong on Brian’s scowling expression, and then he sighs. With a resigned air, he addresses T. “You’re waiting for Will?”

        “That’s right.”

        “So you’re not leaving?”

        “Nope.”

        He nods, accepting the unchangeable. “In that case, I could use a strong drink. Come on, Terrible. You can help carry.”

        T gives Neil a suspicious look. “Okay, I guess. Just keep your hands where I can see them.” 

        “Oh, no worries _there_.”

        “And you’re paying.”

        As they leave, Neil sends Brian a look over his shoulder that clearly says, “You owe me _big time_.”

        And then you’re left alone with Brian. Somehow, everyone else chose the same moment to split off.

        Shifting your weight from foot to foot, you wait for him to decide how he wants to play this. You think he’ll make some excuse and leave you alone on the edge of the dance floor. Part of you wishes he would, so you could finally slink off with your tail between your legs. He doesn't though.

        Instead, looking so very tired, he reaches out for you.

        It’s so incongruous to what you’re expecting that you actually jump at his touch. He smiles briefly, ruefully. Embarrassed, you drop your gaze to where his fingers rest on the pocket on your shirt. He lightly grips the fabric as if to pull you closer.

        You touch his hand, and he stills. Summoning up your courage, you finally meet his gaze head-on. The cool façade is gone, and he’s letting you see what’s been brewing beneath. It’s the same expression he had when he was saying, “We’re good together, aren't we?” Open. Vulnerable. He seems unsure, as if he wants to close the distance between you but he’s waiting for a sign that he’s welcome.

        You open your mouth to say… to tell him…

        And then someone clears their throat.

_______________________________________________________________

        You've never seen Will look so uncomfortable, but he stands his ground. “Hi, Sonny,” he says softly.

        You swallow down the lump in your throat so you can say, “Hi, Will.” You quickly extract yourself from Brian, stepping back and not meeting his eyes.

        “Hi,” Brian says shortly.

        Will just glares at him.

        The tense silence is only broken when Neil and T rejoin you with the drinks.

        Neil seems genuinely happy to see Will. It’s night-and-day from his reaction to seeing you. “Hey, Will!”

        Will’s eyes quickly flit away. “Oh. Um. Hey.”

        T looks between all of you with raised eyebrows. “Dude. Awkward.”

        “I thought we were meeting outside,” Will says to T.

        “Something came up,” T says, eying you.

        Neil is suddenly the most chipper guy in the room. “I’m glad you could make it.”

        And you suddenly realize... that Neil invited Will. He didn't say before, but it’s obvious now. He invited Will, and he purposely didn't invite you. What you feel then for Neil comes very close to outright loathing. Brian looks downright betrayed.

        “I wasn't going to,” Will admits.

        “I talked him into it,” T says.

        He did? Why does every encounter with T leave you feeling as if you’re the only one missing vital information that everyone else already knows?

        Neil accepts Will’s ambivalence with good grace. “Well, I’m glad he did.” He takes Will’s hand and tugs him toward the dance floor. “You have to dance with the birthday boy. It’s a rule.”

        Will spares you a nervous glance as he’s pulled away.

        You take T by the arm. “Can I talk to you?”

        You don’t really give T a choice, hauling him away from Brian. Once you’re far enough away, you demand, “Why would you bring Will here?”

        “Whoa. First, Will can go wherever he wants. Second, never touch my jacket again. It’s worth more than your café makes in a week.”

        “T…”

        “I thought he could use a night out. Get back into the scene. He’s wasting his time waiting for you.” He smirks at you in that special way of his that makes you want to hit him. “Isn't he?”

        “T, what are you doing here? Really?”

        T sighs and rubs his head. “Maybe I owe him.”

        “Maybe you owe _me_.”

        You regard each other with grim expressions, both remembering the feeling of his fist colliding with your face.

        “Yeah, well,” he says, “maybe both debts are one and the same tonight. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a free drink with my name on it.”

        You watch him walk away from you and feel absolutely no compulsion to follow him back into that awkward mess. Instead, you head for the bathroom.

        On your way in, you’re nearly knocked over by two giggling men as they stumble out. They’re clearly having a better time than you are. The bathroom is small, with low lighting and only three cramped stalls. The water from the faucet feels lukewarm when you splash some on your face.

        You take your time before finally looking up into your own reflection. God, you look tired. What are you even doing here?

        No. Really. What are you doing here? What the hell happened to Chad?

        Just as you’re wondering how long you can hide in the bathroom before it becomes obvious that’s what you’re doing…

        Will slips through the door.

        The breath leaves you in a slow exhale as your eyes meet in the mirror. The music from the bar was already muted by the thick walls, and it fades further as the walls start closing in on you.

        “Hi,” you say.

        He leans back against the door. “Hi.”

        After that, the silence hovers, heavy and loaded, over your heads. Your mouth has gone dry. You lick your lips nervously. Will’s eyes follow the movement, and your heart starts to pound in your ears.

        Reluctant, you give up the mirror-Will to face the real thing. You take each other in, and it’s too much. You didn’t notice before, but he’s wearing that shirt you love. Not the plaid one, but the nice blue dress shirt that brings out his eyes. He’s fresh-shaven, and his hair has been combed and gelled.

        And the idea that he did all this so he could come here with a _wing-man_ to pick up someone else…

        … it’s unbearable.

        “I should go,” you say.

        You don’t. And not just because Will is blocking the door. You had your chance to leave, and you ran for the bathroom instead of the door.

        His expression is bleak as he approaches you. Your instinctive reaction is to retreat. There’s nowhere to go with only about four feet between you in either direction. Your back presses hard against the sink.

        “I am trying really hard to understand here, Sonny. I am.”

        You can see that. It’s obvious he’s reigning in his anger, and you don’t blame him. You feel like a guilty kid caught with cookie crumbs all over his mouth. _Who me?_

        “Just tell me why.”

        “Why?” you echo weakly.

        “Why are you here with Brian?”

        Such a simple question and with no simple answer. At least, not one Will wants to hear or one you want to say. You suppose there’s no point in trying to explain that you didn’t exactly come here with Brian, that this is all a terrible coincidence. Even if you did, then you would still have to explain why you stayed.

        “Are you still with him? Is he why you disappeared again? Even after what I told you? Didn’t you believe me?”

        Your collar feels too tight. You tug at it anxiously, looking anywhere but at Will. “Of course I believe you.”

        “Then… you just don’t care?”

        You’re pleading, for yourself and for him, when you say, “Will, please don’t do this.”

        You were— _are_ — angry with Brian on Will's behalf, but there’s nothing you can throw at Brian that he can’t throw right back in your face. He was only able to taunt Will in the first place because you gave him the ammunition. You’re hardly innocent in this.

        The truth is that Brian has been good to you, and you’ve given so little back. You only slept with him in the first place because you were angry with Will. And then things got complicated and confused, and now you don’t know what you feel. Will doesn’t want to hear that either.

        “This isn’t fair, Sonny.”

        “I know. I _know_ —”

        “We weren’t even really broken up yet. You waited _a minute_. How do you think that makes me feel?”

        You know exactly how that made him feel because you felt the wound as if it were on your own body. And you knew this conversation was going to happen eventually, knew it as soon as Will recognized Brian’s sweatshirt on you, but that doesn’t mean you’re ready for this.

        “I am so sorry he told you. He had no right.” God, you sound insincere even to yourself. You’re sorry you got caught, but not for doing it?

        Will’s mouth twists. “You're right. He had no right. But he did. And let me tell you, Sonny, he enjoyed it. He _really_ did."

        Ashamed, you drop your gaze to the floor. What can you say? You can't defend Brian, not to Will or anyone. You still don't understand what Brian was thinking, but it was undeniably wrong no matter how he could spin it. (Not that he bothered to spin it for you.)

        Will steps closer, and the room shrinks further. "He didn’t have to tell me. I already knew.”

        “I know." Because he saw you wearing that damned sweatshirt. "But Brian didn't know you knew. He threw it in your face, and that wasn't right.”

        “Brian knew," he says bluntly.

        "What?"

        "I’m telling you that I already knew even before you ran into me that day. And Brian knew I knew. I _saw_ you, and he saw me. That’s why he sought me out to rub it in. I'm not surprised he didn’t bother telling you about _that_. Maybe he thought it was better if I was just out of sight, out of mind...”

        Will is still speaking. Unfortunately, it's all gibberish to you, because you're still stuck on one very specific thing he said.

        “ _What_ did you see?”

        There are a thousand different incriminating scenarios flashing through your mind all at once. Now, you really want to run. But you have to know.

        Will looks away, clearly embarrassed. “I went to see you at Common Grounds. I wanted… I guess it doesn’t matter what I wanted. I was there, and I saw... I saw you kissing him.” He looks so unhappy.

        Oh. Well, shit.

        “Do you love him?”

        You’re shaking your head, your mind incapable of even going there with Will two feet away from you.

        Will sucks in a breath and takes a step closer. “Do you love _me_?”

        He’s too close, and you’re paralyzed. “You know I do.”

        “Then why haven’t you ever kissed me like that?”

        “Like what?”

        “Like with… Brian.”

        Will wants you to kiss him like you kiss Brian? Fine.

         _Fine_.

        It happens very quickly. Will makes a surprised noise when you grab him by the collar and pull him into the nearest stall, slamming the door shut behind you. There isn’t enough room in the cramped stall for two people, but you’re pressed so tightly against Will that it doesn’t matter.

        There’s an ease to it, the steps familiar in this dance.

        But it has been too long, and you’re grabbing and breaking and Will is the only thing holding you together. When you kiss him, you fucking _kiss_ him, pressing in hard and bruising his mouth over and over with yours, taking everything, until Will finally catches up. With a hoarse cry against your mouth, his arms wrap tightly around your neck.

        It’s not enough. Even with him wound around you, it’s still not close enough. And so you tug Will’s leg up over your hip so you can pull him in tighter against you. His foot slams up against the opposite stall with a loud bang. You barely hear it because your cocks are now aligned, and you're rutting together like desperate teenagers.

        Will’s gasp is thick and wet, a decadent sound that goes straight to your cock. You trail your mouth over his face, briefly catching his lips in a wet smack and then releasing them to travel lower. His hands tug at your shirt, seeking contact with skin, but your frantic movements cause his fingers to slip sloppily over the buttons. He only successfully undoes two or three.

        If you were in your right mind, then you would probably break away long enough that you both could get a handle on simple things like buttons and zippers. But your mind is gone, burned out of your skull because this, this here between you, is so bright and hot, and it feels as if you’re directly embracing the sun. Even though it hurts, you can’t let go. You’re bound. In the moment, you think this was always going to happen. Even when you said, "No," that night in Will’s dorm room, somewhere deep, down inside you must have known it was only no _for now_.

        He grips your ass and pulls you in even tighter against him as if he can’t get enough of you either. Your moan is buried in his neck until he pulls you up into another kiss. He kisses you like a man whose been starving for exactly this. You understand perfectly. Still, it isn’t close enough, so you clutch his face in your hands.

Even though you're bound, with Will here in your arms, the ties don’t feel suffocating. They feel like a blessing. As if you’re just a missing piece of him, and you’ve finally come home to join the whole. You love him so freaking much. It’s as if your heart is outside of your chest and he’s holding it in his hand. Except it’s not your heart— it’s your cock and his hand is rubbing it between your bodies in the most desperately perfect way.

        He’s startled when you suddenly pull back to stare into his wide, dilated eyes. You only make him wait a brief second before you growl, “Turn around." Barely hesitating, he complies.

        You want to be touching every part of him. Pressed up against his back, you push his hands up until he grips the top of the stall. He obediently leaves his arms up, giving up control, and you take the opportunity to run your hands down his arms and sides, and then back up under his shirt and over his chest and stomach. So much warm, perfect skin and all for you. He twitches and gasps under your touch.

        It has been too long. For both of you.

        Drunk on power, you suck the back of his neck, _hard_ , until he shivers and groans something obscene into the crook of his arm.

        You’re plastered against the full length of him when you begin rocking into him again, the delicious friction sending pleasure shocks all the way down to your toes. Your mind spins at all of the things you want to do to him. You want to be inside of him. You want to drop down to your knees here and now and suck him deep into your mouth. You want…

        You don’t realize you’re saying these things aloud, right against his ear, until Will moans, “Oh, God, Sonny. Yes. _Please_.” He’s so honest in his pleasure. He always has been.

        But, to your own surprise, the wanton moans suddenly make you angry.

        You never wanted it to be like this with him. It was never just sex with you and Will. It was always gentle caresses, and a slow but intense boil up to the finish. You took your time and savored every bit of him. You also held yourself in check for Will’s sake.

        Now, the hungry way he’s rubbing himself back against you makes you wonder if this is how he’s wanted you to be all along. You’ve never seen him like this before, so desperate for you. He arches into you like a hypersensitive cat.

        The horrible thought strikes you that maybe you’ve been boring him in bed all this time, but he was too nice to say. It’s hard not to think of the time you saw him kissing Neil…

        For the record, he’s never kissed you like _that_ either. But you thought it was only because he was drunk and upset when he kissed Neil. You wanted to be his safe place. There’s nothing safe about this. He’s taken that away and left you with just the sensation of falling and falling without the promise of a soft place to land. Damn it, you guys were supposed to be better than this.

        You were. You... are.

        And you know Will is in your head. Because, even as you think it, he grips your wrist as you are dipping your hand down the front of his pants and says, breathless, “Sonny, wait. We can’t. Not like this.”

        He’s right. You can’t.

        God.

        Just like that, a psychic weight falls down upon you, and you’re slumping against him, breathing hard against his neck. You have to get a hold of yourself, but it’s a harsh comedown. Your hands don’t want to unclench from where you’re gripping his shirt. In a way, it’s like suddenly slamming the breaks when you were just going 90 down the highway. Your body and your brain need a moment to realign. Once they do, you’re filled with sorrow.

        “I’m sorry.” You rest your forehead on his shoulder. “I am so sorry, Will.”

        His voice is thick. “I know. Me, too. This isn’t us, is it?”

        “No. It isn’t. You don’t want me like this. I don’t want us like this. You deserve better.” He deserves to be made love to in a soft bed, not randomly fucked in a disgusting bathroom stall.

        He turns in your arms. When you lift your head, he cups your face in his hands. “Why don’t you let me decide what I deserve?”

        Your eyes fall closed as your foreheads come together. He’s holding you up, and in more ways than one. “I’m really messed up right now, Will.” The admission cracks your voice.

        “I know.” His hands soothe through your hair. You think you could almost breathe again like this.

        “But you still...?”

        “Yes,” he says. No hesitation, just certainty.

        It’s what you want to hear. So, why does hearing it make you want to cry?

        “Listen to me, Sonny. There are only two or three things I know for sure in this life, and one of them is that it's supposed to be you and me. Always you and me.”

        It’s so romantic and perfect but in the completely wrong place and time. The conviction in his voice makes you feel even more disoriented than you already were. “Even now? Even after I...?”

        “Yes. Don't get me wrong. I'm really mad at you right now, and I don't understand this thing with Brian. I don't want to. But I can forgive you. I _do_ forgive you. I just need you to forgive me. Can you?”

        Can you?

        “I miss you,” you admit.

        “Then let me come home.”

        He makes it sound so easy. It surprises you that he still thinks of your apartment as home. Unless… Oh. He means you. You’re home.

        “I’m not ready.”

        You’re just not. Not for anyone. Not yet.

        But you let him hold you so you can burrow yourself into his arms and hold on for dear life.

        “I can wait,” he says.

        “Really?”

        “You waited a year for me. I can wait for you.”

        You try to make light of it. “What, a year?” It’s a weak joke.

        Will just smiles.

_______________________________________________________________

        It’s clear now what you have to do.

        That you’ll have to give one of them up. You should give up both. You think that would be the best thing for everyone. You see it, and you know.

        It’s just that… you’re weak. You’re lonely and you’re broken, and you don’t want to face it alone. You don’t know how to fix your own messes. Sometimes you do, but right now you don’t.

        You don’t know how else you can give up Will. You broke up, and you’re still not broken up.

        You got entangled with Brian, and now he wants everything from you. He wants to be with you. You’re betraying him right now. You’re also being unfaithful to Will. Neither of them have you, and yet they both do. They both think they want you as you are, but they don’t. How could they?

        How do you get back to who you were before? Do they even know who that person is? Do you?

        You can’t hold onto anything, and you can’t walk away either. You’re stuck.

        The only thing you know for sure in this moment is that you want to go home, wherever that is. You want to go home, and not to your own because your apartment doesn’t feel like home.

        It hits you then that you want to be back in Brian’s apartment, tucked away in his bed with him as a warm presence at your back. The desire makes no sense in light of everything else that’s happened tonight. It just is what it is. That arrangement happened so easily when everything else felt so hard. You just want a safe place to land.

        It won’t be that simple. Brian is upset with you. You don’t want to get into it with him again, but it almost feels worth it if he’ll let you go back with him tonight. Just to sleep. And then maybe in the morning, you could…

        You could fix things with a clearer head.

        But you can’t find him. After looking and looking, you finally find Neil, who reluctantly tells you that Brian has already left.

        It’s probably for the best anyway, even if you leave disappointed.

        In the end, you go home alone to your own apartment where everything is quiet and still and you hate it for not being what you thought it was going to be when you first moved in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Fun fact! "WilSon in the bathroom stall" was the first scene I ever wrote for this fic. Eleven chapters later, here it is!
> 
> 2\. I couldn't include the song in the [Official Knots Playlist](http://8tracks.com/starvinbohemian/the-loose-ends-will-make-knots) because I didn't want to spoil that the scene was coming, but [the Great Shipwreck of Life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IpbKo1wLDk) by IAMX provided the original inspiration for that scene and, by extension, this whole story. IAMX will always be my WilSon band.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A choice is made.

        The next day, Chad calls to deliver his sheepish explanation for ditching you last night at the bar. He has to call you on the phone, because there was no way you were going in to work today.

        Feeling sheepish yourself, you listen patiently as he tells you about his talk with Abigail, about how he thinks they’ve really turned a corner. You can hear the smile in his voice even as he apologizes for leaving you alone at the bar. He sounds happy. You’re happy, too. For them.

        Forgiveness is easy. It’s hard enough to stay angry with Chad as it is, and he isn’t the one with reason to feel guilty about last night. He isn’t the one who was too embarrassed to look anyone in the eye today. No, that would be you. Just you.

        You went home alone last night, but you might as well have brought the whole party back with you for all the noise that filled your head: Brian telling you that you're good together, Will saying he loves you, and your mother asking if you're okay.

        You’re not okay.

        Last night was a wake-up call and probably a long-overdue one. If it ever occurred to you to protect Will from your mess— and you would probably be reaching to claim such altruistic motives— then you blew it all to hell by mauling him in a bathroom stall. It’s for the best that you couldn’t find Brian last night, because you’ve already proven that you can’t be trusted with him either. You must have been crazy to think that going home with him would have done anything but make everything worse.

        This is what always happens. When you get low, you sink further and further into your own thoughts until the world starts to take on a distorted view.

        You have to blame the stress. It’s been an emotional tightrope walk, and you can’t do it anymore. It’s not fair to anyone. You didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but you did. You saw it on Brian’s face and heard it in Will’s voice. You’ve been so concentrated on yourself that you forgot to care about other people’s feelings.

        It’s time for a change, beginning with getting yourself together. You’re overdue for some self-maintenance.

        And so, with this in mind and without being dramatic about it, you go to ground for a few days.

__________________________________________________________________

        You claim a cold to buy some time and to guard yourself against the well-meaning.

        The door gets locked and the phone turned off. Close the curtains and block out the world. Focus.

        You can do this. You’ve done it before, pulled yourself back from the brink without having to resort to professionals. There are meditation techniques you’ve learned along the way. Foods that boost serotonin levels. Exercises to produce endorphins. Really, what you need most are time and space to get your head on straight. That’s all.

        Ultimately, you want this solo sojourn to be different from past ones. You need to keep busy instead of just lying around and wallowing. As it were, stress cleaning only gets you so far, because the apartment is spotless after a single day. You can only vacuum so many times, no matter how soothing you find the dull roar of the machine.

        You flirt with the idea of finally getting some things accomplished, like finally writing that thesis paper for the Econ class you keep forgetting to attend or getting that box of your brother Joey’s old photographs into the mail for him.

        You finally do the latter just so you can feel as if you’ve accomplished something and that the day wasn’t completely wasted.

        The paper never gets written. You just don’t have it in you at the moment, and you’ll probably have to retake the class next semester anyway.

__________________________________________________________________

        Mornings are hardest.

        You wake up aching, half-hard and wondering whom it is you’re reaching for before you remember that you’re alone. That encounter with Will at the Spot left the feel of him branded into your skin. You can still taste him. He left a restless energy buzzing in your veins, hungry for more, and it’s all you can do to keep yourself from picking up the phone and calling him.

        The worst thing he could have done was to leave the decision with you.

        You love Will. But you’d be lying to yourself if you said that Brian didn’t touch you in a way that no one else ever has, in a way that goes beyond pretty ideas like love and logic. Will makes you ache with love and longing. Brian makes you lose control. Then again, that night, so did Will.

        You’re just going in circles.

        It’s the self-reflection that is proving most difficult for you. The part where you have to face what you’ve done.

        An attempt to wrestle with this leads to a strange whim that has you taking to pen and paper.

        Sometimes, you reason, it helps to write it all down. You like organization, charts, and lists. There’s clarity to be found in logic and order. At least, you’d like to think so. You’ve been so adrift lately. Why not try retracing your steps back to the root of the problem?

        And so you begin your web. You start with your most recent mistake, which was deciding to ditch work (and class) again today. A simple start. Not so scary.

        You draw a line from there to a point that you neatly entitle, “The Spot.” From there, the web spreads out into three branches: “Will,” “Brian,” and (for fun’s sake) “T.”

        Though it comes from a sad kind of inspiration, it’s easy from there. The pen flies across the paper, creating a complex mess of crisscrossing interconnected lines. You’re on a roll, adding folly after folly, down to the minute. Every time you ever crossed a line that you shouldn’t have, going back to the beginning.

        Like that time you let your hand rest too long against Will’s when he was still trying to be straight, and you knew it would confuse him, but maybe you _wanted_ him to be confused because he wasn’t straight and he was supposed to be with _you_.

        Or the first time you held Brian’s flirtatious stare a beat too long even though you knew even then that you were leading him on.

        Or when you touched Will’s face that night in his dorm, leading _him_ on.

        Or, or, or…

        While this might appear to be an exercise in masochism, for you, this feels like a vague sort of step toward being proactive. That’s good. Anyway, it’s better than just staring at the ceiling.

        By the time you get to the “Alex” branch, the hurt barely registers. But it has to hurt or else it’s not working, right? So, you carry on. Folly after folly, right up until you—

        You stop. Just like that.

        You put the pen down and slump back against the foot of your bed, defeated. Because you were right. The page is full, and all the mistakes, all the hurts— they share a commonality. You were looking for clarity in chaos when the answer has been staring you in the face all along.

        It’s you. It’s always been you. Even if you had gone right somewhere instead of left, everything would have still happened the same. Because you are you, and when the chips are down, you can almost always be counted on to do the wrong thing, to run away at the first sign of trouble.

        You are the source of all your own problems.

        And you already knew that. 

__________________________________________________________________

        You adopt a strict exercise regimen. Push-ups, crunches, and anything else you can think of until you’re too exhausted to remember you’re depressed.

        The only time you leave the apartment is to go on runs— _away_ this time from popular spots like Horton Town Square. You bring an iPod full of loud, distracting music— and absolutely _no_ songs from any mix given to you by either Will _or_ Brian.

        Between the music and the harsh sound of your own breaths, it's the only time you can escape yourself.

You’re out escaping yourself on a particularly brisk morning when you see the other jogger approaching from the corner of your eye.

        This is a popular path for runners. It travels through Salem's most beautiful park and then down by the water before looping back around toward the city.

        As they near, you amiably shift aside to let the person pass. When they stubbornly stick to your side, you purposefully speed up to increase the distance between you. You aren’t looking for a running buddy.

        It’s only when the person speeds up, too, without passing that you finally glance over and see a man waving to get your attention.

        It’s Neil.

        You trip.

        The ground rushes up to meet you before you’ve even realized that you’re falling. It’s an ugly, awkward fall, limbs thrown akimbo and headphones ripped from your ears when the cord gets caught by a flailing elbow.

        You spend a few dazed moments staring at the ground before you sit up to see Neil gaping down at you.

        “Shit. Are you okay?”

        Really, the damage only amounts to torn knees and palms. Your pride hurts most, and you tell him as much. Neil offers you a hand that you accept with a sheepish, “Thanks.”

        “No problem.” He hands over your fallen ear buds. “I didn’t think you were going to stop, but I guess you just didn’t hear me.”

        You wipe sweat and dirt from your eyes, feeling ridiculous. “Why wouldn’t I stop?” How long was he following you anyway?

        He shrugs. You sense there’s more to be said, but you aren’t going to pry it out of him. Neil wasn’t exactly warm towards you the last time you met.

        Embarrassed, you start hobbling back the way you came. “Well, I guess I’ll see you—”

        “Sonny, wait.”

        You turn back with a sigh, already mentally bracing yourself. “What is it, Neil?” As if you don’t already know. You and Neil only have so many points of commonality.

        He looks uncomfortable. “I just… want to talk.”

        “Do you?” you ask tiredly. “Because I tried to talk to you the other night and you—”

        “Behaved like an asshole? Yeah, I know.” Neil tugs off his beanie, which leaves his straw-colored hair sticking up in funny tufts. He looks young to you, closer to Will's age than yours, maybe still more boy than man. Suddenly, you remember that you liked Neil once, and it’s enough to make you regret the nebulous hostility between you.

        Your voice gentles even as you try to edge away. “Look, no offense, Neil, but I really have to be going— _ah_.”

        You were trying to hide how bad your knee was actually hurting, but the first step sends sharp pain up your leg, and you’re cursing before you can stop yourself.

        Neil looks startled. “Wow. That fall was as bad as it looked, huh? I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. You really didn’t hear me calling you?”

        What an ass he must think you. “Really, I’m fine. I just have to go...”

        Neil gives you a look. Sighing, he tugs the beanie back on and reaches for you. Before you can protest, he has his arm around your waist and he’s pulling your arm across his shoulders. Stunned, you stare at him. “It’s really not that bad.”

        “You can’t even walk,” he says patiently.

        “I can—”

        Neil cuts you off. “Sorry, Sonny, but I was a boy scout for five years. It’s too late for counter-programming. You’ll just have to humor me.”

        “Neil…” The denial dies on your tongue. He’s clearly determined to help you, and you’re clearly not in a position to fight him off. Sagging against his side with a defeated sigh, you give in. “Okay. Lead on, boy scout.”

        He nods, satisfied. You have no choice but to follow his lead as Neil guides you up the path, carefully avoiding potential pitfalls. His unexpected kind gesture drains the last of the defensiveness from you, and you open the door to the conversation he obviously wants to have.

        “What did you want to talk about?”

        You see his rueful smirk from the corner of your eye. “What else?”

        “Brian?”

        “You got it.”

        You sigh again. “He isn’t exactly speaking to me at the moment.”

        Neil snorts. “Believe me. I’m aware.”

        Is he? Did Brian tell him about your last argument? Does he know what Brian wants from you? You don’t have the nerve to ask. Instead, you ask, “How is he?”

        “Not great, Sonny,” he says grimly. “He’s acting like a real ass right now. I’m sure you can relate.”

        You deserve that. You hang your head, ashamed. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

        “Are you?”

        “Of course I am, Neil. I don’t want anyone to be unhappy because of me. Things are just… complicated right now.”

        “Too complicated to talk to him?”

        “Sorry, but yes.”

        Neil shakes his head. “You and Brian really are a pair.” The bitterness in his voice is at odds with the gentle way he maneuvers you out of the way of an oncoming bicyclist.

        “I don’t get it, Sonny. I really don’t. You’re a nice enough guy, but you seem to leave a lot of damage in your wake. First Will, then Brian. Now, Will again?”

        You wonder which one bothers him more. You really don’t know him well enough to tell.

        “It must be nice,” he says, “to be able to pull people in so easily. I bet it feels good to know that you can do this to someone like Brian.”

        “God, Neil. I know you must hate me, but it’s really not like that. I care about… both of them.” You can hear yourself sounding like an asshole, but you can’t seem to stop yourself.

        “Must be nice,” he says again.

        Before you can protest further, he waves you off with the hand not currently holding you up. “Sorry, I know I’m being harsh. I don’t hate you, Sonny. I really don’t. And I know that this isn’t really my business. It’s just… hard, I guess, to watch Brian with you.”

        He blushes at your raised eyebrow and rushes to say, “Because he’s my friend. He’s my _best_ friend.”

        “I know.” You have no reason to doubt it. All this time that you’ve been hoarding Brian to yourself, Neil is the only one to consistently challenge the arrangement, always interrupting with a knock or a call. Beyond his crewmates, Brian hasn’t hinted at any other firm presences in his life. Maybe you’re the exception, because everyone else seems to have to work for his attention.

        You don’t know how you feel about that, though it’s becoming increasingly obvious how _Neil_ feels about that. Is it strange that you’re kind of relieved that Brian is the reason for this confrontation rather than Will?

        “So, it is my business, because Brian is my business. I get to care about what’s happening to him.” He says this as if you would argue.

        “I’m not saying Brian was ever a saint or anything, but this just isn’t him. He’s never hidden anything from me. Frankly, I sometimes wish he would share a little less.” His wry smile wilts as quickly as it appears. “Now, he’s being all secretive and pretending like he isn’t upset when he obviously is.”

        “And Will?” you ask because you might as well get it all out there.

        He flushes a little at that. “Will is a good kid. When I first heard that you guys were together, I was happy for him. I thought you would be good for him.”

        You could be cruel with the truth and say that Neil knows nothing about what’s good for Will. You could, but you won’t because you would only embarrass yourself further. You’re embarrassed enough already.

        “But you don't think that anymore.” Both of you know it isn’t a question. “What about you, Neil? Would you be ‘good’ for him?”

        Maybe you wanted him to feel embarrassed, too. But if you did, then Neil disappoints you. He shrugs, which is impressive in your current state. “I won’t be a hypocrite. If you choose Brian, then it’s not exactly going to suck for me.”

        “Something tells me you’ll be all right either way.” It slips out before you can even think about what it means.

        Neil doesn’t respond to that, but his hold on you slips for a second. He makes you feel like a sack of potatoes when he hoists you back into position with a rough grunt. You never realized how long this trail really was until this conversation. It feels never-ending.

        “Look, I’m not really worried about Will.”

        “Uh-huh,” you say, unconvinced.

        “I just want to make sure that you’re considering how Brian feels in all of this. He acts like nothing touches him, but you know that’s bullshit, right? He would kill me for saying this, but you know how he feels about you. Don’t you?”

        Your heart sinks at the question. If Neil weren’t practically carrying you, then you would probably run at this point. When you don’t answer him, Neil suddenly brings you both to a halt. He adjusts his hold so he that he can look you in the eye.

        You shrink from his frank stare, wishing like hell that you hadn’t tripped over that stupid rock. “Neil, can we just…?”

        “You know, don’t you?” he insists.

        Damn him. “ _Yes_. Are you happy?” Of course you know. The knowledge has been keeping you up at night. “Now, can we please just go?”

        “Well, I guess that’s something,” he says, though he doesn’t look any happier for having the confirmation. At least he starts you both back onto the trail. Maybe you’ll get home some time before next Christmas.

        No longer looking at you, he says, “Honestly, I don’t know if Brian even knows how to be in a relationship. I’ve certainly never seen him try before. But what you guys have been doing lately looks close enough. If you don’t want to be with him, then I wish you would be honest and cut him loose. It would be kinder.”

        He’s right of course.

        “Do you even know who you want to be with?”

        Your silence speaks for you. Neil frowns.

        His laugh is short. “I take it back. It must suck to be you.”

__________________________________________________________________

        Your leg is fine after a few days bed-rest. You wish you could forget the conversation with Neil just as easily. The truth is that Neil wasn’t wrong. About any of it.

        You’re not always a good person. Rarely perfect. But you want to be, and that has to count for something. You want to do what’s right for everyone, even if you don't know how.

        Brian asked you for space. You asked Will for space. Everyone has space. But hiding in your apartment isn’t helping anyone, and space isn’t working. Hard as it is...

        It’s time to be honest. With yourself, for starters. You need to figure out what it is that you want. And then you need to tell the respective men in your life. You owe them that much.

        Right now, you need to talk to Brian. You and Will were honest with each other about where you stand. It’s time to do the same with Brian. There are too many things between you that were either almost said or never said. You think you know what Brian wants, but you’re tired of inferring. You want him to say it aloud so everyone’s cards can be on the table.

        And you’ll tell him… what you’re feeling.

        And so, without further second-guessing and despite lingering confusion still clouding your mind, you finally muster up the nerve to track Brian down. You drag yourself out of bed, wrap yourself in your warmest scarf, and just go. You’re nervous as hell, but you go.

        Once the decision is made, you expect the rest to fall into place. Funny enough, tracking Brian down proves more difficult than you expected.

        You try his apartment first. But after several knocks and several minutes of anxious loitering outside his door, you have to admit that he’s not at home. Since it’s the middle of the day, you know he’s not at the Spot or any of his other preferred bars. Crew practice is always in the morning, and it’s already late afternoon.

        To your shame, the only other place you can think of to look is the university commons. It’s a long, cold walk with enough time for second-guessing. Suddenly fortified, you force yourself onward because you want this thing done already.

        The Commons is crowded today. All the couches are full, and there’s a long line at the coffee stand. Hovering uncertainly at the entrance, you scan the room for Brian.

        In a last ditch effort, you’re about to give up and call Neil for help. Your phone is already at your ear when you finally spot him across the room. He’s sharing a table, one of those tall ones with bar stools for chairs, with someone.

        Your hand falls back to your side.

__________________________________________________________________

        You never understood how Will could get so worked up over seeing you do something as innocent as share coffee with Brian.

        That first time, it really was innocent. You had just kissed Will for the first time, and he looked at you like a deer in headlights before firmly rejecting you. How were you to know that it was his defense mechanism? That he was more afraid than you were?

        You didn’t know, and Brian was there for you. He saw that you were hurting and offered to listen. Will saw you talking, maybe saw Brian leaning in too close and assumed the worst. He jumped to conclusions and ended up jumping right into bed with Gabi. Everything snowballed from there.

        It didn't mean anything, but Will thought it did. At the time, you thought he overreacted.

        You get it now.

        Brian must have a type, because the boy is about your height, and he has dark hair like yours. From the back, he could _be_ you.

        Seeing Brian do his thing— and while you aren't distracted by having his stifling attention directed at _you_ — and you can see why Will would be upset. Brian manages to make even the simplest thing seem suggestive. It’s in the promise he offers just by leaning forward into your personal space. It’s that wicked gleam in his eyes that makes you want to climb off your pedestal and sin with him.

        Like Will, you could be reading into this, but somehow you know you aren't. Brian’s disappearing act from your life makes a lot more sense now. You have to wonder how long this particular fish has been on the line. Probably the whole time. Brian’s great at multitasking, remember?

        God, you were so grateful that he was being so patient with you. But he wasn't being patient. He wasn't waiting at all. You've been a fool. Again.

        When Brian actually reaches up to wipe the foam from your doppelganger’s lip, you turn away, deciding that this is enough incentive to put a period on this particular sentence of your life.

        You almost run straight into Neil just as he’s coming through the doors and you’re trying to leave. “Whoa, Sonny!”

        You try to push passed him, but he catches your arm. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

        You don’t know what he sees in your expression because you aren't feeling anything at all, can barely even hear him over the rushing between your ears.

        “Nothing,” you tell him. And you… don’t. Feel anything. “Excuse me.”

        You figure you have maybe a two minute head-start to get the hell out of dodge before Neil tips Brian off and he comes after you.

        Brian catches your arm in less than one.

        He’s out of breath, his fingers digging into your skin. “Sonny, that wasn't…”

        “Yes, it was,” you say, not angrily because you just want something— _anything_ — to be clear and honest for once. The world is full of liars, and maybe if you were one, too, then everything would be a lot simpler for you. Maybe you wouldn't keep finding yourself here in this same place over and over again.

        Brian looks upset. Unfortunately for him, you already withdrew from this conversation before it even began. Expression blank, you pull your arm away. "Please don't lie to me."

        “I know, okay?” he says. “About the Spot? About you and Will?”

        It doesn't surprise you that he knows. Of course he does. You won’t even ask him _how_ he knows. At this point, it hardly seems to matter.

        Brian stares at you, obviously waiting for something from you. Denials or hysterics or anything probably other than the _nothing_ you’re giving him.

        "Seriously? You have nothing to say?" He wants you to be upset. Like he is.

        “I’m sorry,” you tell him, because you can’t even give him that. He'll think you mean something else, but it doesn't matter. None of this does. Not the guy he left at the table to come chasing after you. Not what happened between you and Will. Not anything that you might have said or felt.

        There really is nothing left to say.

        You won't lie to him, which means you can’t even tell him you’re sorry about what happened with Will. Will Horton is in your blood. You’re starting to realize that's maybe a forever thing.

        And maybe you always knew that. Of course, that would make you the liar then, wouldn't it?

        If that's true, then you can't be angry with Brian for whatever he's been doing with that guy. Maybe you were at first, but it's clear that this whole mess is mostly your own fault for seeing things as you wanted them to be instead of how they actually are.

        You don't want to be here anymore, having this conversation, with Brian looking at you like that. You want to be at home, in your bed. You never should have left.

        Brian grabs your arm when he sees you edging back from him. He pleads with you. “Sonny, he means nothing to me. _Nothing_.”

        You look at him sadly. He doesn't understand that it's over, that he’s given you just the thing you were waiting for.

        He will.

        Your silence only seems to make it worse. He's starting to sound desperate. “You… Sonny, what do you _want_?” From him, he means.

        What do— _did_ — you want?

         _Something real_ , you think. Because if it’s not real, then what’s the point? If sex is the only point, then there is no point. You’re still just left disappointed and alone and (more) broken. You thought you could do the selfish, casual thing, but subconsciously you were always looking for a foothold, for something real to cling to.

        And you realize that was never fair to Brian, to want both more and less of him at any given time. You’ve been so, so selfish. You could have released Brian any number of times, but you just clung on tighter. Selfishly, you didn't want to give him up. You...

        Oh.

        It hits you like a punch just then, and you suddenly realize what you actually came here to say. Then, you do feel guilty, because there’s an undeniable relief in the fact that you didn’t get the chance. It would have been the wrong thing, because you’re still in love with Will. Whatever you feel for Brian, that much hasn’t changed. Maybe it never will.

        You think you're finally ready to do the right thing. But this still really, really hurts. So much for not feeling anything.

        Brian's grip on your arm tightens as if he can actually see you disappearing right in front of him. When you manage to pull out of his grip, he tries to follow.

        " _Don't_ ," you snap, and it comes out harsher than you meant. 

        Brian's face falls. “Sonny, _please_.”

        You think the worst thing about all this is that Brian was right. You could have been good together. Once. But you… just can’t. Let go. There’s something stubborn inside you that won’t allow it.

        And so you take him in one last time. You remember the feel, the taste, the excitement, and the _promise_ of him…

        … and you let him go.

        “Goodbye, Brian.”

        The desolate look on Brian’s face is nothing like the cool confidence you’ve come to associate with him, but if that is (finally) real, then it’s too late.

        What did he expect? Why does everyone think you so above things like actual feelings? Everyone is so surprised when you forget to let everything roll off your back, when you forget to let them off the hook. You’re Saint Sonny, right? That’s what you do.

        No. Not always. Sometimes, you just leave.

__________________________________________________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another heartfelt thank you to all the people who have encouraged and supported this fic since the beginning. I really appreciate it. One more chapter to go!


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